Sense and Insensibility

I had just finished writing a piece before that moment of carelessness when I saw it vanish in its entirety before my eyes. So now I am staring at a blank screen wondering if this is not a story so common. A life full of intangibles. No old photographs with bug-eaten corners; No hand-written letters stacked in that secret corner from persons long gone; No old records nor cassettes that were once mended by turning a pencil through the hole. Yes there are memories. But with so much space to store and the ease of it one cares less each day about the grist. And one day it is all lost. Pufffff..... in thin air, and all that is left is a vast emptiness. Anyway here is my second attempt.
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It was a cold winter evening. The dew drops hung tantalizingly from the tip of the grass blades before plunging to their sudden demise. In death they moistened the ground for the earthworms to gnaw at. Butu could see one digging a mound of earth a feet from where he lay. He laid on the grass with his mouth open like a fish out of water. The cold wind blew over the football field bringing along the rendition of the muezzin's azan that was emanating from some yonder minaret standing on the other side of the Ganges. Butu heaved with all his might, again and again. Every time, the cold air slid through his wind pipe whining as it passed before getting lost in the maze of alveoli. The hungry wretches kept begging for more and more air. With his eyes focused on the busy earthworm he patiently waited for the moment to pass. Butu had had his bouts with asthma before. The two had fought fiercely and he had lost every time. But the losses had taught him the art of playing dead and living to fight another day. 

Far away they were cheering. Tubai had scored a goal and they had won. In the euphoria none had noticed the missing mid-fielder. Wins had been hard to come by in that tournament. Hence the celebrations were a vengeful necessity to absolve past humiliations. A faint smile crossed Butu's lips as his fingers dug into the grass bed. A sign that the fight within was still raging. The last blurry image before passing out was that of his captain running towards him in his trademark red t-shirt and black shorts. The rest had left for home.

Tubai lived not far from Butu's house. But they did not go to the same school. In fact Tubai was the only pre-teen child in the campus who did not go to school at all. The sweet fruits of schooling were therefore not his to be had. No one told him that if he added the squares of  two sides of a right-triangle they would magically be equal to the square of the hypotenuse. If he ever heard that word he would perhaps think it was a distant cousin of a hippopotamus. That of course assuming he remembered what a hippopotamus was from the few years of childhood when he attended kindergarten. But Tubai knew his angles, squares, circle and spheres well. The square cuts, cover drives, corner kicks and penalty shots were evidence enough. To Butu it seemed he understood the concepts of trigonometry better than his other friends put together. The books only taught what Tubai already knew.

So the two boys coasted through their early years in different ways. One sailed while the other tumbled. Childhood is like that furiously exciting downhill ride in a bicycle. The beginning is a slight struggle, but then the excitement increases as one accelerates at breakneck speed; Caring ever so little to capture the moments of life as they whiz by. The falls come, sooner for some and later for others. It is these falls that etch in the supple mind and form lasting memories. The ride itself remains just a blur. That summer evening Butu would fall. One that would etch a perpetual scar.

The Finals of the football tournament was well in motion. The spectators had filled the stairs that led to the ground. Every child under the age of six became part of a cheering-machine that supported the home team. Every child above six was in the team. Those who had managed to reach their teens were not playing. They were each assigned honourable roles in administering this important event. There was a scorer, a referee, two linesmen, even a couple of coaches, all in their early teens. Tubai was the only exception. It has been mentioned that Tubai never went to school. Tubai's household also never celebrated his birthday. Perhaps they did in private, but there certainly were no balloons or a birthday cake or the cacophony of feather capped whistles. Without a grade and a birthday the junior world knew not how to measure Tubai's age. So every year he captained the football team as the rest of its members moved in and out with the tide of time. There were rumours that even Chintu the referee had once played under him.

So the match started. For the first half it took its merry course with the occasional foul and the exaggerated whistling by the referee who was obviously trying to make his importance felt. After a goalless half and a short break the second half started. The tension in the crowd was palpable. Butu was passing the ball well. The heaviness of the humid air lingered like a pall of gloom around him threatening at every moment with an attack of asthma. Through the heavy wheezing he kept dribbling over a labyrinth of bare feet. He had moved well in front to take a shot at the opponent's goal. Then, just as he was about to set his left foot firmly on the ground to pivot around for the final kick, it slipped. Like a ballerina doing her final split his legs stretched asunder on the slippery mud. It set a sudden shock of pain that traveled from his abdomen up the spine till it hit the cranium. The bludgeoning impact had pressed an involuntary panic-button inside that now caused a heavy beating of the heart and strong wheezing. The shock accompanied by a sense of breathlessness was too much for the kid. His eyes welled as he sat in that grotesque posture as the gallery cheered a perfect execution of a scene directly out of a comic strip. Only a banana peel was missing. As always Tubai came running to his rescue. As Tubai bent to give a hand to his friend he noticed the gaping hole in Butu's shorts. The stitches had come apart from the impact and the kid's mickey-mouse underwear was visible for all to see. Tubai could not resist the tempting apple. In a childish frenzy he guffawed uncontrollably and beckoned for the others to see the spectacle. The ever curious child in him would not give in . He laughingly kept tugging at Butu's shorts to give the rest a better view of the spectacle; Unmidfull of the price he was paying for his impulsive jocundity. What followed was a scene out of Tom Sawyer with the kids having queued up to take a peek at those motley coloured underwear. 

Butu's wheezing had not stopped. The muscles in his inner thigh pained, reminding him of that day when he saw a chicken being de-feathered behind the meat shop. The gracilis muscles twitched. From where he lay he could see the laughing faces collage to form a ten-headed demon. And in its center was the face of his trusted friend. The largest smile, the most treacherous one with a stamp of betrayal written all over those glistening white fangs. The battle lines had been clearly drawn and the traitor was celebrating his treachery. For lack of a better rationale the child's mind decided to hit back where it would hurt. He got up fighting the excruciating pain slapping away at the outstretched hand offered by his friend. He called Tubai an uncultured wretch who lacked even a modicum of shame and the decency to behave in public. He called out Tubai's lack of school education. Butu reminded Tubai how everyone who laughed with him now also laughed at him behind his back; Knowing well that it hurt him like running a dirty finger over a lacerated wound. The laughter had vanished and was replaced by a look of confused disgrace. As if being bludgeoned by a club Tubai walked back towards the center-line with his head hanging down.

That evening Butu could not concentrate on his books, The letters from the Gulmohar text danced in front of his eyes like the petals of its namesake. The mocks still rang in his ears. "If I were not his friend, he would never have been allowed to play with the better types", he murmured. He remembered the time when the entire campus had turned against Tubai because he had purportedly commented at Mr Singh's daughter. Butu had been asked to incriminate his friend but had refused steadfastly. In those days Mrs Singh had frequented their house often and implored his mother to save her son from 'bad influence'. She had congenially ignored the suggestion, and Butu now remembered how proud he had been of her. It was another matter though that Tubai never meant ill for the girl. In truth, they were both bitten by the same love-bug and remained under its spell till she suddenly realized what a gargantuan waste it was to be enamored by an urchin boy. Tubai had been the saner half of the relation, and Butu had known this all the while. Nonetheless the role of a Lancelot always appealed to him and he was convinced the he had done Tubai a favour.

Dinner for the night was served. There was potol curry on the plate. Butu had had a lifelong struggle with that vegetable. It seemed that providence had placed the distasteful item on his plate to put an unpalatable end to a depressing day. He complained to his mother. While it did not have the desired effect, the words found their way to his father's ears. The man had just walked in to the house after a tough day's work. Butu was promptly informed of certain consequences if even a single piece of potol was left in his plate. On another day Butu would have spent time pondering what those consequences might be. But today his mind was saturated with enough to make his eyes well. So the vegetables forced their way through a hostile tongue and a reluctant oesophagus. That night there were nightmares. One involving a sudden push off a cliff and another where invisible tendrils dragged him to the bottom of a pond. They clung to his mind till dawn.

In the ensuing months Butu remained close to his other friends. They would go to schools together. Every afternoon, they would return home and after some snacks congregate at the campus playground. The football season was over and the young minds had turned towards cricket. The Indian team had gone for a tour Down Under and suddenly every lad wished to bat like Dean Jones. Tubai was being neatly kept out of it all. He would be seen walking on the boundary walls of the ground with a stick in hand. Often he would be engrossed in shadow-fencing against an invisible enemy. His friends advised Butu not to worry about the misfit, but he found it hard to ignore the stick's intangible slashes. It seemed that the wheel of fortune was turning, and rapidly so for Tubai. The incident at the football field was soon forgotten. The culprit had been branded and ostracized. With the weeding now complete the cherubs could play in the beautiful garden once again!

Months passed; The exams came and went. The children moved a step away from childhood without realizing it. Only one stayed put, stubbornly refusing the inevitable. Like a rogue sheep he hopped from one mischief to another, obstinately refusing to mend himself at each juncture. Soon, the ladies were spending evenings chatting about how faulty parenting can lead to a disaster, like Tubai. Even the men coming back from office would not enter their household without passing an unkind remark about him while they smoked under the banyan tree. Butu watched from his window as the arrows of aspersions impaled his friend, painfully realizing the ebbing of the last vestiges of his friendship.

A few months later Butu's family decided to move out of the place. The child was told they were moving to a better place. He did not mind. Like a well bred child he was already showing signs of adaptability, a quality essential for a bright future. He dutifully helped in the packing of luggage, taking special care to pack his playthings. One day among his things he found a deflated football. It had seen better days and now had taken the shape of a rugby ball. He took the kitchen scissor and ran through the leather puncturing the underlying bladder. "There goes the bad memory" he thought and disposed it to the garbage bin. Outside, the truck was loaded and the black Dodge barely had room left for the family to sit. It was afternoon and all his friends were at school. They had all come with gifts the previous evening to wish him farewell. They had shared letters professing eternal friendship. He now wondered if that was all true. "Why then do the elderly have so few friends" he murmured, as the Dodge sedan jerked to a start. With all the luggage safely stacked Butu hopped into the rear seat of the car.

In front of their house was a guava tree. Butu had spent many afternoons on it hatching plans to reach the raw fruit in the high branches. As he looked there he saw his partner-in-crime still dangling from the tree. Yes, it was Tubai- An emaciated shadow of his bold and confident self. Butu rolled down the car window and stared into those dark hollow eyes. Tubai never blinked an eyelid. But his limbs instinctively let him slither down the trunk till his bare feet hit the ground. And there he stood like a stubborn mare. The Dodge moved. The smell of burned diesel filled the air as it rolled over the gravel road. Butu's tongue went dry and desperately clung to his palate perhaps to absolve itself from being held responsible for the moment. Of all the words in the books that he had read from those years spent in classrooms none came to his rescue as he was locked horns in this test of humanity with a street urchin. The Dodge reached the gate. Just before it took the final turn Butu saw through the cloud of dust the silhouette of his friend running towards him. His right hand was waving frantically at him, or so Butu thought. He stuck out his hand in the gesture of a wave, but the car had turned already.

The stone never hit the windshield it was aimed at. It fell only a few feet away from where Tubai now stood. "Damn friendship!", he said, and walked away.

The Other World

The speedboat had finally reached a truce with the high waves of the Na'Pali. The revving of the engine having reduced to a drowning gurgle. The vessel now bobbed like a drunken log having submitted itself to the beauty of the surreal ambiance. Like a siren the undulating waves of the turquoise sea beckoned even as the tall cliffs forewarned of the immeasurable forces of nature at play.

I put on my swimming goggles and pulled the rubber extension that covered my nose, rendering it vestigial hereonward. I clamped the wind-pipe between my clenching jaws. Yes, I was afraid. Not so much of drowning as of the sheer sense of emptiness of floating over a world of unknown. The word 'abysmal' suddenly seemed fathomable. I remembered that summer day in Bally when I was thrown into the pool and asked to swim. Just as I was clumsily managing to keep myself afloat, a water-snake floated by. It must have been as scared as I was and a clumsy swimmer too. For we kept floating at the same pace and stared at each other with the same horrified stare. I screamed for the both of us till my trainer put an end to the ordeal. I was a boy then and a man now. I realised that like a parasitic orchid my fear of water had blossomed all these years instead of withering. And it had chosen to return in this heaven-like place in the Pacific to confront me.

I could feel the tautness in my toes trapped inside the rubber fins as I climbed down the ladder into the bluish green mass of liquid magic. Involuntarily my legs started to move and my hands pawed into the water to stay afloat. Far away in the background the cliffs of the Na'Pali began to sway as if in trance. Cradled in their midst was the beautiful Kalalau valley. Basking in the tropical sun its verdant pastures seemed as vibrant as the pristine countenance of a new born in a cradle; Its fluorescent green grass reminded me of Tom Jones', "Green Green Grass of Home". The ocean perhaps did not take kindly to my appreciation of the beautiful shore; For it sent a high wave that drowned me momentarily and sent the salty water through the wind-pipe straight into my respiratory system. The brutal strike lashed me back to reality as the salt tears from the spasmodic coughing drowned in the punishing waves. "It was time to explore another world", I told myself. The one that lay beneath the glistening silver of the surface.

As I put my head down below the surface a sea of blurry endless bluish-green met my eyes. The captain had said that the sea bed lay fifty-feet below. It might as well have been five-hundred for the sight of it remained elusive. Through the corner of my eyes I could see the white anchor-rope stretching from the bottom of the boat and vanishing into the dark deep end. Its disappearance only serving as a measure of the bottomless depth. I could clearly see the black fins I was wearing although they seemed to belong to someone else. The trail of bubbles they left with each flap glistened on their way up to the surface. There was no sound of splashing to give a tangible feel to my efforts. Only the straining force in my sheens and the streamlined caress of moving water along my body to assure that there was no magical hand in keeping me afloat. Yes, and the constant deafening sound of ones own breathing and the lub-dub of the heart fusing to add a strange percussion to the awe-inspiring visual.

My fins kept flapping thrusting me further away from the psychological comfort of the boat. The inside corners of the goggles were beginning to fog. "I must not breathe through my nose", I reminded myself. Through the foggy lens I looked around. Straight ahead stood a massive length of darkness. Slowly it stretched till it engulfed my entire field of vision. I felt trapped in the center of some aquatic amphitheater unable to see the rows and the faces of the audience due to the encompassing darkness. I panicked. My mouth must have gaped a little wider for a gush of salt water re-entered my trachea. My head jerked out of the water and I strained for some air. Through the water-dripping lens I could see the Na-Pali cliffs now looking grotesque in form through the foggy lens. Mustering the shards of courage I dove back into the water. The darkness was now strangely more prominent in the sunlight. I was now moving towards it.

Slowly the darkness began to reveal itself, much like the dark night slowly reveals its stars to the patient sky-watcher. I do not know if the revelation alleviated my fears. Perhaps the wonder of the spectacle just overpowered my bourgeois trepidation of ignorance. The darkness was a formation of massive underwater reefs that slept like somnolent giants on the turquoise seabed. Over them spread innumerable corals a mixture in beauty of tropical flower and the eeriness of a human brain. As the sun shone on their face the brilliant colours leapt out like a hundred birds of paradise let loose from a magician's black cloak. Through the deep crevices between the reefs appeared a school of yellow striped fish. They momentarily stared at my strange presence before turning an angle in unison and disappearing altogether. I turned around to catch sight of them only to be distracted by a Hawaiian sea turtle brushing ever so close. It lazily sauntered back to the depths like a UFO saucer. The kaleidoscope kept changing as natures forces kept playing with my hapless mind. The sun, the clouds, the cliffs, the soaring Albatross, the Pacific, the grandeur of its surface and the wonder beneath; All playing to the perfect crescendo to evince out of my inexpressive self a sigh of wonder. Yes a sigh, to die for. I had long stopped the flapping of my fins. Like a drunken log I floated in the undulating waters for what seemed an eternity.

My return to the boat was nothing more than an ordinary struggle. A case of tired limbs and overspent excitement. I saw the anchored rope on the way. This time it did not scare me. I had seen the beauty of the depth. The captain hauled me up and stripped me off my fins promptly relegating me from my amphibious self to a land mortal again. I looked up one last time at the western coastline of the island. By now the cliffs had netted a low hanging cloud which now trapped was growing in size and wrath. The grumbling had begun and soon the dance of nature would begin. The darkness of the seabed now reached the heaven above. Our tiny boat seemed tinier as the waves rose and fell around it. The captain sped for the coast. As the boat's belly rammed over the waves the bile in my body mixed with the salt water I had earlier gulped and threatened to spurt out. I suppressed the urge by concentrating on the 'good, wide, beautiful, wonderful world' around. The thunder bellowed, the lightning cracked and the horizontal rain came down like water-darts. In many ways they had a chastising effect in reminding one that the Na'Pali was a place for the Gods and mortals had no business being there.

I returned the man I was having seen only a little more of our wondrous planet.

My 'Brother' Akheel

When I was a little boy, Iraq meant -The Land of the Scud Missiles. Thanks to Pronoy Roy's - The World This Week the incessant visuals of the flying Scuds never left a child's mind. In our campus the big guys would play the "Americans" while the puny little ones would be the "Iraqis". The winter evenings were spent with the Americans chasing the Iraqis all around the children's park. The skirmishes often ended with an Iraqi returning home in a torn woolen sweater. On rare occasions an American would receive an embarrassing black eye in the hands of a worked up opponent. The underdogs would hail him as "Saddam". At sundown we would declare ceasefire and trudge back to study lessons and homeworks. Those were the evenings when juvenile ignorance allowed us to play an innocent charade of a gruesome war. Then the years flew by and I forgot all about the children's park-wars, even as America's obsession for Iraq continued.

Sixteen years later, on the smoldering Texan summer I was walking up to my apartment in the Mexican neighborhood; Almost leading myself to believe that I was Gary Cooper from The High Noon, when I heard someone conversing in what sounded like animated Arabic. Now an Arab in a Mexican town would be like Lawrence, in Arabia, I said to myself. A character so out of place, and yet not. As I approached the iron stairs to my apartment there stood a hairy source of that Arab dialect (the 'hairy' part I knew since he wore an unbuttoned grey shirt). A man with a crow's nest of a head and an overgrown mustache. Akheel was yelling at his friend who was inside his apartment and was yelling back with equal zeal. As our eyes met he flashed an armory of stained teeth. Yes, that was how I first met Akheel. The guy was all you could get wrong in a country paranoid with men of Middle-Eastern decent.You could not tell what he did for a job (except that he volunteered at times to fix my friend's car); It was impossible to tell how he landed in the middle of Texas. It must have been a Colombian boat if you ask me. I had no idea what he was doing in a University town either other than to ogle at girls in pink shorts. He definitely showed no scholarly inclinations, failing consistently to construct a single legal sentence in English. There was "Illegal" written all over this guy. And just to remove any modicum of doubt, he chewed a cheap cigar. This one was Saddam, Gaddafi and Castro pressed in one, right in Bush's backyard.

Akheel was friends with everyone. He chatted all day with  Ronnie the big Afro-American who stayed upstairs. He was friends with Pedro and Pepe the Spanish maintenance guys, the mailman, the burly Bill who owned a pit-bull  and of course the numerous college going girls who passed our property on their way to the University gym. But the worst of his traits was that he called me "Brother". The more I tried to disassociate myself from the creature he interfered with my life. If I was studying in my single room apartment with the door open, he would walk in with that obnoxious cheap cigar (half wet with his slime) dangling from his mouth. He would insist that I let him in as a guest to the University gym. As a student I was allowed to bring a 'visitor'. He knew my gym-timing and would wait by the stairs everyday leaving me with no choice. Once in the gym as I walked in with this rogue in toe I could feel a hundred suspiscous eyes on us. I would try my best to lose him. In the training room while lifting weights I would spot him through the mirror. There he'd be wallowing aimlessly on the indoor synthetic track as the college team sprinted by trying their best not to bump into him. Akheel of course was oblivious of it all for his eyes only cared for the rows of slender legs on the assembly of treadmills. No sooner than I had warmed up for some serious workout that I would feel a prodding on my shoulder. "Let's go Brrother!" came the irritating dictum. Those extra 'r's he put in 'brother' succeeded everytime in pushing my patience to the edge. They had warned me about culture shock at the American Center in Kolkata. An integral part of that education was the famous American syndrome of "rolling the 'r's" (not to be confused with 'arse'). Who would have imagined that I would experience that phenomenon through my Arab brrrother Akheel. Anyway, man learns to survive against many odds and so did I with him as my neighbor.

And then one day we struck a common chord.

I must also tell you that Akheel drove a white mini-van that was in no better shape than the owner. Actually I did not even know if he owned it. When asked he replied that it belonged to one of his 'brothers'. Knowing by now the broad scope of that word I strongly suspected the van to be a stolen one. One evening while I was standing by the front porch sipping coffee Akheel's van wobbled across the street and stopped right in front of our apartment. Out came he with a broad smile and two large carps in either hand. Now life as a graduate student in the US had not exactly been how the advertisements back home portrayed. You could buy a few things from your on-campus earnings; But fresh fish wasn't one of them. Firstly, because you did not have a decent shop near Arlington that sold fresh fish; And secondly, if you did the price was exorbitant anyway. Thus the fish-eater in me was in the process of dying a painful death when his eyes fell upon the smiling Arab holding out his prized catch. He dangled them in front of me as the setting sun glistened on the silvery scales. "Good fish brother; Fresh fish" he said with his typical mischievous demeanour. That evening he told me how he takes his van every Thursday to a nearby stream, where he sits and fishes for hours. He made me believe it was just a fun jaunt with more dividends than effort. By now I had got the sweet taste of the forbidden fruit. So we struck a deal. I was to accompany him on his next fishing trip and we'd split the loot at the day's end. Little did I know that I was shaking hands with the serpent. Thus began our brotherly partnership.

So it was that on a Thursday evening in the summer of 2007 I came home running after attending the day's lecture. I changed into a pair of shorts a casual t-shirt and put on my tennis shoes and hopped into the rear of the dilapidated van, all set to experience the greatest fishing experience of my life. The van gurgled loudly as Akheel revved its engine. Perhaps a case of a silencer gone bad. I thought. As we journeyed I found other components of the vehicle that had reached what in machine lingo is known as EOL (End of Life). It huffed and puffed and spewed carbon-rich smoke as Akheel egged it to maintain the speed on the highway. A couple of vehicles gave a mocking honk as they whizzed by. Akheel greeted them with flashing teeth and a middle finger while I hid my head in embarrassment. The Iraqi sure was learning to give back the surprise punch. While we drove Akheel spoke of his parents, his wife, his children and the rest  of his family. He kept rambling about life in Iraq, at times raising his voice in frustration. I felt that bitter pang of having to live far away from family. But then I did not know what sort of a compulsion drove him from his homeland to the USA. Who knew, perhaps it was a crime he comitted there that if caught might have costed him his limbs, or perhaps his manhood too! I assured myself that there was nothing I could do to empathize with his predicament. I concentrate on my fishing.

Inside the van was expectedly a mess. There were disassembled fishing rods (mostly dysfunctional from their looks) bundled under the seat. A small plastic container lay on the seat. Inside it was a polythene packet filled with a doughy substance. It looked like a mixture of flour, raisins, strips of dates, and what looked like fine grains of wheat. All Akheel would tell me about it was that, "Good fish like this food". I didn't know if he meant that fish in general liked this good food or it was a particularly good breed of fish that liked this food. To me it looked like a medley of all the unused grocery in his house.

By now we had reached a point where the highway led to a bridge that went over a tiny stream. Just before the bridge Akheel steered the van off the road towards the right and parked it at a vacant spot. This was no parking spot as far as I could tell. He had claimed that land by virtue of regular usage. He got off the vehicle and looked around probably for the cops. I felt like a thief's accomplice as I did my share of the perusal. We then gathered the packet of fish food, the several twigs with lines wound around them, and a couple of disassembled fishing rods. From that spot to the stream was a steep grassy slope. The wind was blowing down the slope and along the stream. I could tell that the wind always blew this way for the grass blades lay somnolent like a dog's fur constantly caressed by its master. And that made the slope slippery. Akheel being the veteran positioned his body sideways and galloped down the slope. For me it was just a fast and furious slide. My tennis shoes slipped the moment they set foot on the grass and did not stop until I landed by the muddy bank. I quickly got up and brushed my embarrassment. Luckily I wasn't carrying the fishing lines or I might have been the first catch of the day.

We sat on the grass while Akheel setup his primitive contraption. He pushed one of the branches that we were carrying half way into the ground. A little more than a couple of feet stood above the soil. Then he tied one end of the fishing line around the branch knotting it several times to ensure it did not break loose under duress. At the other end of the line was a dead weight and a rusted fishing hook which he covered with a lump of the doughy substance. Then with a mighty heave he threw the line so that it landed in the middle of the stream. In minutes he had sprayed out five or six such lines tied to as many branches dug to the ground. Having laid out his usual traps he assembled one of his fishing rods. Then he ambled along the bank of the stream to finally settle near a rock. Having swung the rod to drop the bait in the water he sat with his knees bent near his chest quietly waiting. His instructions to me were simple, "Brother dont pull when fish pull, Let him eat. Only pull when he pullll". So I waited with my eyes on the lines. Every now and then a line became taut, I looked at Akheel. He would raise a hand asking me to wait. This one must have been a seasoned killer, I told myself. The lines rose and fell like guitar strings and like a novice my eyes kept focusing from one to the other till my forehead hurt. The prey kept nibbling as their fate danced to the tune of those strings. And then suddenly, one of the lines went taut and rose all the way to the middle of the stream. Before I could stand on my shimmying legs Akheel was onto the line like a leopard. A struggle between man and fish ensued, during which the line snaked over the water making a hissing sound. He pulled like an expert. As the fish neared the surface of the muddy bank he turned and ran up the slope with the line. I saw what that did. If he had gone closer to the water to catch the fish he would be playing to the prey's advantage. The bank was devoid of grass and muddy and hence slippery. The fish could easily have slithered out of grip and a single mistake in leaving the line might have ended in a futile attempt. Instead he ran uphill, dragging the fish out of the water and away from the slippery bank and on to the grass. The grass blade took away the slime and made it impossible for the fish to escape. It also made for easier gripping. We had got our first catch.

A few hours and a couple of catches later I was still sitting by the branches playing my mental metronome not having contributed in the least bit in this collaborative effort. It was almost time for sun down and a squadron of mosquitoes had become airborne. They droned over our heads and every now and then one of them launched a kamikaze on our flesh. Wearing a pair of shorts had not been a good choice, just like the decision to wear tennis shoes.  Akheel was his usual self lighting a half burnt cigar that filled the air with nauseating smoke. That smoke, along with hunger and the pressure to perform was having an irritable effect. As time passed I began to feel irritated by Akheel's presence. Perhaps I never thought a man from a desert country could beat a boy who grew with the Ganges flowing behind his backyard in a fishing contest. I must have forgotten about the Euphrates, the Tigris. And while I pondered sulkily about the ills in the man one of the lines began to move. This times there was no cadence of rise and fall. Instead it was a monstrous pull that snapped the branch. Had it not been for the Arab's reflex the game would have been already over. But Akheel's bear-like paws had grabbed the branch, and now he was holding the taut line.

The branch-and-line combo was a primitive equipment. Unlike a fishing rod it did not give the liberty to let the line loose to give the prey a lease of comfort and then wheel it back slowly. So Akheel walked all the way to the edge of the water to simulate a lesser tension on the line. After a while he would walk out of the mud. And each time he did he ensured a yard or more got reduced between man and prey. With the tension around and the mosquitoes above I decided to stand up and walk slowly move towards the mud. The tennis shoes were brown by now and the crevices of the sole filled with mud to make it precariously frictionless. We waited as the line drew closer. Then with a sudden splutter a tail rose above the water and then vanished. It was a big fat buffalo fish. It was now panicking as the line drew it towards the shallow end. Akheel whispered to me to be ready. Not knowing what that meant I bent me knees and spread my arms like a goal-keeper. I quickly tore a tuft of grass and rubbed them, for I strongly suspected that a hand-to-hand combat was around the corner.

Soon enough the huge head of the buffalo fish reared out of the water. Akheel reverting to his usual tactic started climbing up the slope. But this was a heavy one even for the Arab. So the piscine giant struggled in the mud throwing splinters of dirt that splattered my face and half-blinded my vision. In a moment of courage I lowered enough to grab its torso. But the slime on its body was too much and it slipped not before leaving my palm bleeding with a jab from its pectorals. The blood somehow made it easier to muster that extra courage and I dug my knees on the mud and almost fell over it. It was now fanning its lengthy dorsal fin that had been somnolent till now. It scratched the side of my face and I could instantly feel the warm gush of blood. Then it suddenly went quiet. Days later when I revisited that encounter I realized what a masterstroke that was. Seeing that the fish had gone still Akheel had left the line and ran down the slope to  help me pin it down. And I seeing Akheel running down must have become a tad complacent. In that millisecond of carelessness our adversary gave the jerk of its life. The jerk blinded me and I instinctively went to clear the mud from my eyes. Akheel was running downhill and in no position to trap the slippery buffalo. He only managed to trip over the line and clumsily fell on me. Entangled in a grotesque mixture of mud slime and grime we both stared cluelessly as our adversary escaped deep into the bed of the stream. It was an hour past sunset when we trudged back to the van.

That night I was the laughing stock among my roommates. Taking my defeat quite sportingly along with the raw scars on my palm and right cheek I was busying myself in the kitchen when the door bell rang. And sure enough there was the Arab, two carps in hand smiling as always. He had come to give my part of the deal. When I reminded him that I had just been a bystander even less useful than the deadweights he just smiled. And of course exhaled the obnoxious fumes from a half-wet cigar. That night we all sat in front of Akheel's apartment eating baked fish from his portable grill sipping cheap beer and taking long drags from his oversized hookah. I smiled as I thought what the folks at the American Center at Kolkata would think if they saw me now. In a few months I left school and I never met Akheel. I think he just kept living life in the true spirit of the Maverick.  

The Deodar Tree

In Kindergarten I was often asked to write about my house, my school, my parents, my best friend... about a domestic animal, a wild animal, a tree! Yes, a Tree. I have little doubt about the failure of those early attempts. Here is my second take, on a tree.
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The Deodar stood like a mast towering adamantly over a sea of rooftops. A perfect anomaly amidst rows of colonial houses. Every summer when the Nor'wester roared, it swayed ever so slightly. As if to say to the wind God, "You may have my allegiance but never my obeisance". The kaal-baishakhi shattered windows, uprooted lesser trees and bent many a lamp post. Tin roofs flew like dead leaves and the dead leaves mixed with the birds fluttering helter-skelter against their will. But the green behemoth stood unscathed, weathering every storm. How it happened to be there would have been a curious case for a historian. My father said that it must have been planted when the British owned all this land by the Ganges. The Brits meticulous as they were established factories along the river bank and built campuses to house their officers. The gora sahib's penchant for beauty must have led to the planting of the deodars and cedars along the walkways of the campus. Post Independence these factories lost their hallowed place in the state's machinery, and piece by piece the industrial land was nibbled away by the real estate market. Where the godowns were now rose rows of Lego flats. The lavishness of the British Raj was rapidly replaced by the need of the bourgeois to have a makaan. The felling of the conifers was a mere collateral of this process. And slowly yet surely they all fell like dominos, one after another. Except one that stood surreptitiously in the corner growing inch by inch, from strength to strength.

Like a scarecrow it stood as rows of houses germinated around it. They surrounded it like guards waiting to take the captive away. I lived on the ground floor of one of those houses. Each morning as I dressed for school I could hear the soft rustling of its leaves. The behemoth stood there towering over our front porch blocking the morning sun; It ushered a dullness that rightly represented my mood before going to school. The tree had a massive gaping hollow at its base. Perhaps from an old termite attack. This large yawning mass of nothingness scared me greatly. Every time I passed it my subconscious half-anticipated a mad dog or a terrible reptile to leap out of it. Of course none of that happened and the hollow remained the void that it was, perhaps at times only serving as a safe haven for the litter of abandoned puppies. But this did not impede the birth of myriads of frightening thoughts in my fretful mind. On the nights when the storm howled outside I hid my head under the blanket. And sure enough through that dark hole stared the green sparkling eyes of the mad dog. I quivered under the pillow.

The summer brought both joy and torment. The joy of the long summer holiday and late evenings of playing in the field were preceded by the torment of school exams and the toils of routine evening study. Also, during these months the factory went through the annual ritual of hartaal (lock-out). The lock-out resulted in the shutting down of machinery. And that meant the generators too. So long hours of the evenings were spent under the flickering light of the candle. The summer breeze was often too strong for the puny white ones. So ma had bought the bigger ones like those that stand in the church alter. They stood on my study table like sentinels supervising my lessons. Once in a while I would muster the courage to look up from my books. Outside the night was dark, but the tree always seemed a shade darker. "The wickedness in humans often show in their countenance" I remember my Bengali teacher saying. Perhaps the same holds true for trees too, I thought. I often wondered how the birds that lived on that tree survived in that dense canopy in the sooty darkness of the night. No wonder the owls ran amuck. You could hear the screeches through the night. I couldn't tell if they were the sounds of agony of the prey of the triumph of the predator. But it always sent a chill down my spine.

 As the months stretched, the load-sheddings became longer and went past supper time. Every night after supper the candles were blown out (if they hadn't already quivered away). I would hurriedly hop onto my bed and hide my head under the pillow. The eerie darkness of the room always made me uneasy. My parents preferred to leave the window open for the breeze. But unknown to them were the elements of the outer world that came along with the wind. On a moonlit night as the diffused rays seeped though the assortment of branches the room became a play-field of grotesque shadows, each engaged in a playful orgy with another. I have seen the slender fingers of an old woman beckoning me. The disheveled mane of an angry lion; Or the gigantic cobweb made by an overgrown spider. As those shapes fell on the whitewashed walls my imagination flapped wildly like the wings of an archaeopteryx. The iron rods that made the window railings were my sole protectors from that dark world. They stood like guards protecting me from the tangible danger outside. But the shadows. They lingered. They slithered inch by inch moving across the wall and nearing the hem of the bed-sheet as the moon beams slanted with the clock tick. The shadow of the deodar's long slender branches with finger-like leaves came closer with every passing minute. I held my breath and prayed. I prayed  that one day they would hack down the tree. That they would cut it into pieces and load it in a truck and send away to some yonder place. Oh why keep a monster like that amidst civilization. I must have fallen asleep before those cold fingers of death touched my flushed cheek.

Children are often faced with adult disregard for their opinion. This is not uncommon. Unlike stubborn kids I did not fight it. But that morning as I walked up to my father I felt a certain confidence in my stride. A confidence that I would he heard and empathized with. "We must cut down that tree, I started." That was as far as I could go. Father did not hear which tree I was talking about or where it stood or why. He sent me back teary-eyed saying that he was ashamed that I had even thought of bringing down some harmless tree. All the terrible tales from the night remained bundled inside as their reverberating laughter mocked me till I cried. That evening my father's friends came over for a cup of coffee. After discussing office they decided to go out for a smoke. The coterie stood for a while under the deodar as I watched from my window. Then one of them sat on the cemented plinth that circled the tree. Then they all sat down. My father sat with his back to the gaping hole. I watched with my heart pounding so loud that I could barely hear what they spoke. "Should I rush to tell him not to sit there?" I argued. "But then since he is the one who wants the tree there perhaps it will serve him well to have a black hound pounce from behind." I thought in anger. It was just then that one of his friends Mr Sethi said out loud, Arre yeh ped aur kitna din rhega idhar. Isko hum kaat deten hain. To which my father turned into the hound that I was waiting all this while to appear. To my surprise several others joined forces with Mr Sethi. One said that his wife could not sleep during amavasya nights from fear of the departed souls climbing down the deodar's spine . To this my father retorted saying he could arrange for a tall ladder from the factory to save the poor souls the inconvenience of climbing down rough cone-filled branches. This did not go well with his Bengali-Brahmin friend. The man wounded by the betrayal of a fellow brahmin tacitly said that the souls of the departed were not to be mocked about. Inside I felt a seething rage for the stubborn man, my father. It was one thing to ignore a little boy's request. And completely brash and foolhardy to pay no heed to friends, colleagues and well-wishers both matured in age and understanding than I was. The fight must have had scared the hound for it never showed up.

That night I did not go to him to hear bedtime stories. I sat on the corner of the bed with my chin stuck to my chest sitting glum and licking the wound of the supposed insult. I was now more sure than before of the standing of my own opinion. Inside the house I may be alone fighting him, but in the outside world I had the support of all those adult men. Together we could bring father down, and the cursed deodar. After dinner father came to me and put his hand over my  head. His slender fingers felt like the deodar leaves. I tried to move my head away but the little thing stayed put under the weight of his palm. He said something like there being more things in heaven and earth than I could dream of; And then he walked away. How did he know what I dreamed of, I wondered. I never did tell him, did I? Wondering still, I went to bed.

That night the wind howled, the branches cracked and the moon got engulfed by the cumulonimbus before it could create the frightening kaleidoscope through the deodar branches. The darkness was total and the pandemonium complete. The lightnings struck so close that there was no pause between the brilliant light and the deafening sound. That night the destructive forces were all in sync. But they were on my side.

Next morning was especially bright. I felt an unexplained sense of triumph over an intangible adversary. I felt no animosity against father. It was a fight well fought and I had a feeling that the deserving side won. As I walked out to the porch the bright daylight hit hard. Nothing stood between the fierce sun and the porch floor. There was no deodar. I swung open the wooden gate and rushed out. There was the giant tree, slayed by the forces of nature. It had cracked from the base and was now lying prostrate, lifeless, with its branches clawing at the outside wall of our house. Folks had gathered around to see the spectacle. Some said it was a miracle that a major nuisance was removed without anyone getting hurt. Mr Sethi was deep in prayer thanking the almighty with clasped hands. Just then my father came out too. Seeing him a cheerful voice from the crowd point out, "Look the tree lover !" Even the tree knows it, said another. See how it has fallen over his house as if to give him the last hug. They all guffawed in unison. True, the deodar had fallen towards our house. Its branches still clung to our outside wall as if clawing to the last few moments of life. Some of those branches had slipped down and found their way through our window through the iron bar grills. The rest had fallen over the drain beneath. The once wild branches like the hair of a bohemian were now matted and somnolent. The hollow had cracked open and as the sun rays fell through it I could see that there was no mystery in it. Just dead wood. They were talking of planting a kadam tree in its place. Or perhaps use it better for parking space. In a mad disgust tears welled down my cheek as I felt suffocated among this herd of men and women. I felt like a traitor. I ran towards father.


That night I cried.

The Lonely Walk

The morning breeze always brought a breath of fresh air. Almost always except for the days when the rain clogged the main drain in front of our shanty. And when that happened the stench rose before the sun making the night shorter. Today was one such day when it was still a starry night that my eyes opened to. I wrapped the grey shawl over my head and mouth and like a resurrected mummy walked out of the creaking door. The sky had shed its last tear for the night but the gloom still lingered. I walked through the desolate alley (where a pair of drenched street dogs were making the most of the pre-dawn privacy) till I reached the peepal tree. Ziauddin was there, with a head full of jute-like hair bent over a few glowing logs of wood. It wasn't particularly chilly but habit had him lite a poor man's bonfire. You could always find him under that tree at this hour. In the coolie-lines where hunger heralded an early dawn, Ziauddin was the earliest riser. And he was my friend.

Ziauddin drove a white ambassador in which the high and the mighty babus of the factory traveled. But he never spoke of them. The deals they struck and the machinations they spawned in the rear seats were locked away in some dark invisible chamber of loyalty. Ziauddin only spoke of his wife and two little children. He often rambled about the future he saw for them and the prince and princess he was going to make them one day. Today, while my body stayed ever-attentive to the old mullah's discourse my mind lacked the patience for it. It was that sort of a morning. One which reminds you of the insignificance of your existence and quotidian duties but does not provide the courage to break free. Yes, it was like every morning. So I got up to say goodbye to my friend and kept walking towards the main road.

That main road was a thoroughfare of human heads, most of which like mine were wrapped in tattered shawls. Some of the heads huddled around the side stalls sipping garam chai. Every now and then a little kid ran across the street dexterously holding mud cups to reach the steaming beverage to the drivers and the crew of the buses that stopped there only for a fleeting moment. I used to take one of these buses when I was younger. Now there is no rush. I walk the way. The entire five miles. Besides, it is the only time I have for myself. So I start walking. I walk past the textile factory, the post office, the library, the police chowki, the recently built shopping plaza, the masjid, and the high water tank before my knee starts to hurt. It is strange that each day as I walk past these landmarks I anticipate the pain. That it manifests in my knees and not my heart is an absurdity if you ask me. For these buildings hold before me a cyclorama of what has been a pedestrian life. As a child I had desired to work in that textile factory like my father. I dreamed of transforming into a hard-nosed character like Amitabh in Coolie. But father wouldn't have any of it. He said the mill was not a place for little girls. So I wept and wept like a little girl till I fell asleep, and in my sleep I graduated to dreams that befit my father's daughter. My dreams now chased the lovely postmistress who worked at the post office. I wished to walk like her one day through the sabzi bazaar with not whistles to follow but just respect-filled murmurs. That it entailed a little more than wearing a khaki uniform was something I hadn't thought. So as time passed the murmurs never came while the whistles became harsher.  As I grew from girl to woman the doors of one dream after another shut me out. One day I took my torn desires (and my khaki uniform) to the police station next door. By now I wanted to be a police woman (perhaps to arrest all those who quelled my dreams). But before I could voice my desire the hawaldars guffawed and called me a weakling and a dimwit. They said that to be a police woman I must be tough. And to be tough I must wash a lot of linen and mop a lot of floors and do plenty dishes for practice. So you see, that is how I became a maid and remained so for the next thirty years.

The knee pain has forced me to seek support of the hollow concrete pipe lying on the roadside. The pipe is a piece of the Corporation's promise to have an underground pipeline to pass drain water. While it never served the bloated promise it has become my general resting spot. Inside it lives a wretched family of three. If I had known their name I would tell you. But I never asked. To me they were just the smiling faces of  society's garbage. Much like Ziauddin and I. I spend a little time talking to the woman while she suckles the little boy. Last night the slanting rain had drenched the inside. She fears that if it happens again the baby might catch fever. Before taking leave I promise to get her a few spare jute sacks from the vegetable market to cover one end of the pipe. The pain has subsided and a I must continue my walk now.

Last night's rain has left the potholes brimming with muddy water and as I walk along the roadside an alert subconscious tells me to stay away from them. Every now and then a mischievous bus-driver gets the urge to drive over these potholes to give an early morning mud bath to an unsuspecting passerby. I keep walking till I reach another thoroughfare, and then another and yet another. I like this endless aimless walk. It reminds me of just how life has been. But even life comes to a stop and so must my walk. So I take the last turn before I reach the row of houses. Along the roadside the fish mongers and the vegetable vendors have opened shop. Like everyday they are outshouting each other with some minor vying from the milkman too; Their pestering is only interrupted by an occasional ringing of cycle bells and car horns. It is now past daybreak and the roads have started to brim with activity. Most faces in the crowd are unknown to me and many have frowns on them (perhaps from last night's domestic quarrel); Yet together they bring life to the place. I sometimes wonder if it is not this urge to cling to life that keeps us all together. But then I am no philosopher. Maybe I will ask the sahib today.

Behind the rows of houses is a little pond. It is a refuge less to the few ducks that languish in it and more to the womenfolk of my kind. We, the maids conflate in small puddles along the sides of this pond every morning, mostly to delay the start of our mundane day's work. It is the best part of my day if you ask. Laali is the youngest and the romantic among us. Her interest in men liberally hop from security guards to sweeper-boys to drivers. Off late she has set her eyes on the teenage boy who lives in that third-floor flat across the pond. His parents are well to do flat-owners. While Mangala (the eldest in our clan) sits warning the bubbly girl of the perils of breaking class-ic walls I struggle within as to which side I must take. Laali of-course is not the stereotypical love-deprived-child. There s enough love floating in her family. Her mother married her father's brother, a man who's more amorous towards Laali than his wife. Her father of-course is nor dead (nor a drunkard as you may be already assuming) and works as an electrician in a nearby store. He though is a man with a supple spine. I don't blame the girl for misdirected love for misdirection has been the only way she has ever known. Mangala and Laali are my friends too, like Ziauddin. I must get up now for it's almost time for the sahib's cup of morning tea.

The walk from the pond to the sahib's flat is short. The pathway smells sweet with the fallen flowers from the bakul tree making one wish to spend all day under its canopy. But I am no poet to ruminate over nature's beauty. So I walk through the aroma till I have reached the flat. The flat has been my workplace for the past twenty years. Inside it lives a man, all by himself. I do not know if he was ever married or has a son or daughter. It is impossible to illicit such details from a man of monosyllables; Besides I have always felt less burdened without those details. Still it is strange that having known each other for so long we know so little about one another. So like everyday I make tea and keep at his bedside. I do the dishes, I wash the clothes, I mop the floor. Some days I also use the broom to clean the cobwebs hanging high in the wall corners. With each passing day it is becoming difficult to reach the high places. The word of my arthritis must have reached the spiders as they weave higher and farther. Sahib does not complain like before. He must have tried cleaning them himself and felt the pain. Age is such a wonderful leveler.

Once all is done I sit on the veranda and look down at the busy road. I fear times like these when I am free for the questions I fear most crop their ugly head. They say it is a virtue to be honest, hardworking and sincere. I have heard actors say it in the movies,  judges on TV shows, and babas in the temple. I do not know what these words truly mean. To me they have been a way of life, so perhaps I do not know their true meaning. I wonder if these wonderful virtues come with a reward. Maybe I am long due for one? Will the hard work of my dish-washing be remembered after I am gone? Will anyone talk about the maid who found the gold earring lying on the floor and returned it to the owner? What about the days when I reported for duty with fever that in other professions warrant a sick-leave ? What legacy shall I leave other than just one of those shawl covered heads walking through the foggy dawn of this city? I curse myself for these questions. It is only the wise that know the answers and thus have the right to ask profound questions. For the dimwit life is not to reason why. I bid the sahib goodbye and prepare for the long walk home.

On the way I see the same buildings, the various crossroads of my life. I see the high water tank. It stands like a monster. If I had read the War of the Worlds I would have thought that a Martian had landed. But I am not a literate soul and my imaginations have a limited reach. So to me it is still just a water tank. Something in my gut is telling me that I must climb it. I must conquer it. A compelling urge to do something yet not knowing what is dragging me towards those rusty iron stairs. It is madness. What would everyone think when they see a shawl clad old maid climbing a water tank? They may call the police. I may go to jail. I may end up in that same chowki as an inmate. What a shameful turn of events that would be. What would father say if he was alive today? I have already climbed two dozen rungs and a bout of vertigo is creeping in. Yet nothing can stop my climb now. The knees are shaking and a sharp pain is gripping my spine. The horizon is looking like a dark sleeping reptile and the city lights are showing over the tree tops. The wind has caught my shawl and it is fluttering like a flag. I feel liberated, I feel free. I feel there is no turning back. Down below I can hear murmurs. Or are those frantic shouts from a distance. They must be cheering for me. The girl who became a maid and the maid who climbed the city's tallest tower. They will remember me now. They will remember me forever. Damn the honesty, the integrity, the sincerity. Damn the hawalders and damn everyone. I see the smiling face of Ziauddin. I should have bid him a final adieu. I feel sorry for the sahib. Mangala will find a better maid for him. Maybe Laali. The sahib will teach her from his books and she wont grow to be me. The wind has caught sail and I must fly now. My hands slip.    

Every crowd has a silver lining

A straight line is defined as the shortest distance between two points. Therefore, if one wished to walk from one point to another he would be prudent to do so in a linear fashion (unless off course he was inebriated, Fred Astaire or Chaplin). However we live in liberal times where man must question everything he sees, hears and feels. Even this.

This happened at the Dabolim International Airport, Goa.

The ground staff had barely managed to slip the D word under her breath before she was ambushed by a barrage of multilingual volleys. And who could blame the agitated passengers for behaving so. They had naively believed the flight status (consistently showing "On-Time") on the LCD for the past two hours only to be now told that it was languishing at another airport. In desperation, the airline staff offered samosas and pastries from the nearby store as palliatives to sooth the common flier. The plan was failing miserably. Like a man-eater that does not kill solely for food the common fliers devoured the offering and then returned to harry the poor lady. Where is the flight right now? When will it touch down? How much time will it take for refueling? Will it be fit for such a rapid return? With each query the colour of her cheek flushed a shade darker till it could flush no further and instead the watery droplets welled in the corner of her eyes (threatening to jump out at any moment). 

Luckily, the flight landed soon saving the droplets from their deathly plunge. "Please make a line" announced the lady mustering some authority to salvage her lost pride. Like magic, the line formed. It began from the red ribbon and soon crossed the seating area before hitting the wall. From far it looked like a harmonious chain of humanity. One only needed to look closer.

At the start of the line stood a red-turbaned sardarji. He had been rewarded for asking the most questions, thereby consistently representing the collective impatience of the crowd. Naturally content at being chosen the first man to set foot in the aircraft he was now casting a condescending glance at the human race behind. Three spots behind the sardar stood a dark Bengali man with a navy blue side bag that read in orange the following, "Umpire 2012-13, Cricket Association of Bengal". He had been Sardarji's closest rival and had been matching his incessant queries both in frequency and inanity. A natural Bengali urge to get tea at the most inopportune moment had cost him the top spot. He was now impatiently nudging his plastic handbag ever so slightly towards the gentleman standing in front (as if in constant fear of being declared run-out for not grounding it over the crease). 

A few spots behind the umpire was a young couple playing yo-yo with a leash (at the end of which was a child). The little devil was rolling on the floor picking up strewn debris of samosa. The elastic leash was proving a worthy investment as little Alexander tested its tensile strength. Behind the family stood I, albeit at a safe distance since I had noted the light yellow stream that the little devil was trailblazing. This was not going well with the impatient woman behind whose nostrils flared hot air that raised my hackles (making me feel like a springbok about to be pounced in the midst of Kalahari).

Together we formed a human chain bound by a collective urge to move forward; But whose existence faced a constant threat from each individual's urge to move an extra bit faster. Close behind me stood two men. They were not behind one another but rather one beside the other (almost Siamese twin-like). In the early days when the line was forming all its mass was transient. These two gentlemen had then joined the line at the same time. Ever since, neither had been able to forego his position of advantage. So now both stood with a placid face feigning no knowledge of the situation. Inside their heads though electrical charges rapidly relayed instructions from the brain to the spinal cord alerting the limbs to jump into action at the first hint of forward movement. They were not alone. All along the line were several such high voltage points ready for a flash-over at any moment. While the men pushed and prodded, some of the women steadily moved forward to their position of advantage (banking on their invisible cloak of male retribution) while leaving the fight to the dogs. 

Far behind, the line had hit the wall, leaving its fate to the intelligence of the next addition. That addition came in the form of a middle aged man, who was now trying to force himself in the six inch of space that remained between the wall and the last member. The desperate effort to squeeze a fully grown human body in an impossibly minimal space seemed to find other takers. Soon several others aligned themselves like tributaries of the Indo-Gangetic delta. A flash flood was a clear possibility now.

As I stood amidst all the drama inhaling semi-digested samosas and sweat-filled perfume my mind hopped between the tales of Noah's Ark, the Exodus, the movies Schindler's list, Ten Commandments, the memories of the assembly line at my school, and finally my graduation walk; all through a single kaleidoscope of memory. Perhaps they all reminded me of long lines, though strangely none of them brought back pictures of a perfectly straight line. Closest to perfection was perhaps the assembly line at school. As a part of me admonished all rule-breakers in the line a certain line across my hip sizzled from an old caning reminding that I had been one of them not so long ago. Perhaps it is the inherent joy in breaking rules that we cherish when we are younger and keep seeking for the rest of our lives that makes the phenomenon of a straight line so difficult.    

The security personnel was now opening the gate. The sardarji's chest swelled as he now found himself at the helm of a motley civil army. After an uneasy calm the red ribbon finally gave way and the well-fed anaconda started to slither. For a while all went well. And then an over zealous passenger trampled over a young lady's freshly bought Goan wrap skirt. Though it caused only a minor skirmish within the battle lines it tipped many an emotional bucket. A professor in the line was having an outburst, quoting college rules to befuddled co-passengers. Someone said something about "misbehaving foreigners" (in Goa that could mean almost anyone who did not live there). The man in front of the Bengali umpire was now questioning the handbag's eagerness to climb over his pressed trouser. The umpire was declaring him "Out" with a pointed finger and some heavily accented Benglish. The Siamese twins were finally coming to a point where they would have to fuse into a single body to move forward. The painted stoicism was breaking away rapidly as their legs engaged in a three-legged cock fight.

As the micro-skirmishes kept playing I wobbled through the heavily inclined aerobridge into the aircraft frantically looking for a seat to rest. Weeks later as I write this I still do not know if the motive of penning it is an attempt to satire a collective inability or a tacit acceptance of  the order of the disorderly. In an age where man has mastered the science of speed he still cannot disavow the petty urge to race. We still continue to trip over one another to be just a little bit ahead in the game. Anyway, I am disappointed to let the readers know that the flight took off soon after and landed safely with all its passenger reaching the destination at the same time. Nobody won !

The Red Orifice

The sun's rays slanted through the window on to the dusty corridor. They were falling on the face of a young woman; One in her early thirties. Her face almost wax-like with not a crease on the forehead, nor wrinkles near the edge of her closed eyes . She wore a red sari, a colour brightened by the falling rays and amplified by the darkness around. As if life had finally been cornered by death here, in this corridor.  Her forehead glistened from the melting ghee that had been smeared over it. They looked like beads of sweat, giving the serene face a strange sense of struggle. The ghee slithered through the strands of velvety hair taking the vermilion along the way. As if Medusa lay here in her slumber while her serpents slithered.

The rays fell on the rest of her too. On her slender hands that wore the bangles, perhaps from her marriage. The gold, silver and the glass in the bangles threw back the light in strange angles to form an orgy of colours. The luminous mixture fell on yet another face. This was one of a little boy. His eyes were wide open and tears rolled from them in an incessant stream. The hair, dusty, matted as if abandoned by all the care in this world.  The head rested on his mother's lap and his hand held on to hers forcing the bangles to squeeze towards the leanest stretch of her arms.

Near her feet lay another child perhaps of three or four. As if a cherub had been sent here to balance the morbidity. She was playing with her mother's toes, especially the silver ring on her ring toe, complaining to her brother in a whisper that she found ma's feet, cold. Through the dark an adult hand sprinkled some sandalwood over the body while another placed two strands of burning incense sticks onto the corners of the bamboo stretcher. Through the dark came the sound of muffled cries and sighs from faceless onlookers. When two sorrows compete it is difficult to fathom which one is more painful; The premature end of a youth's life. Or the premature death of youth in two children? Here in this room were three lives cut short in their own ways, one no more and two still living.

While the amateurs in the room stay lulled in their emotional bubbles, the pros were at work. Staving off even a modicum of emotion a priest was making the arrangements for the final rites. He now egged the boy to start the antim sanskar. Two men in their checkered lungis and white shirts stood at the edge of the bamboo stretcher impatient for the drama to end. Theirs was the last job and the payment came only at the very end. Hence the hurry. The boy picked up the burning bundle of paat-kathhi and slowly walked around his mother. The little girl followed, thinking this to be an exciting game. Her giggle rankled through the corridor and sent a chill through many a spine. With his hand the priest gestured the boy to stop. The hand now pointed towards the face of the woman. The boy's lips quivered and his hand shook. A few hands came out of the dark again to assist him to accomplish the unthinkable, the inevitable. The angry flame from the burning bundle seared the mother's dark lips in the act of mukh-aagni. The little girl gave a shrill scream as the brother instinctively pulled back the bundle of paat-kathhi. Tears rolled down from her eyes as she clung to her brother. The priest looked at the little girl. "This here is the death of innocence", he thought.

The juggernaut had started rolling and there was no stopping it now. Several hands came out of the dark to lift the bamboo frame. The two men opened the collapsible gates and led the crowd to another room. They pointed towards a pair of rail tracks beckoning the four bearers to put down the bamboo stretcher on it. Once there the garlands and the strands of the sweet smelling rajani-gandha were stripped from the body till it lay there, all alone, wrapped in nothing but the bright red sari.  The sound of bolo-hari hari-bol rankled through the air like the war cry from an army that knew defeat was inevitable. The boy had stopped crying. Perhaps there were no tears left. His sister had not stopped wailing since witnessing the mukh-aagni. She was looking up at her brother, her eyes frantically pleading him to stop the ongoing madness.

The two men bellowed at the crowd to stand back. The rail led to an iron sluice gate. The entrance to the electric furnace. As one of them pushed the lever upwards, the gate opened. The reddish-orange inside spewed the venom of heat waves forcing the crowd to retract. The brother stood still. With one hand he hid his sister's eyes. She had seen enough for the day, he decided. The other man walked to the end of the rail and pulled another lever. With this act the feeble bamboo frame carrying the woman slowly wobbled towards the orange orifice. The sluice gate closed. All fell quiet except for the rumbling hum of the furnace.

Outside, calmness prevailed only to be periodically disturbed by the undulating waves of the Ganges lashing the steps of the burning ghaat. After the momentary stagnation between jowar (high-tide) and bhaata (low-tide) the river had started flowing again, yet again, like it had done forever. 

The Conundrum

She sat by the window on her wooden stool holding the iron rods that formed a protective grill. The rods were rusting. They had been rusting for the past few decades. The gap between them gave an untrammeled view of the setting sun. The sun that was setting behind the terraces of houses. On one of those terraces a little girl sat leaning over a book. "She must have just arrived from school", thought the lady as two plaits tied with red ribbon fluttered in the wind. "Those ribbons must belong to her mother" she thought and smiled. The smile would not have looked less radiant if the diffused sun rays weren't falling on her face. But they were, and the drying eyes felt the pain. She took off the shell framed spectacle and placed it on her desk. Turning her back towards the sun she looked inside the room.The inside was filled with wall hangings carved out of wood. From isolated structures of men women and animals to more complex combination of Hindu gods and goddesses in myriad postures and assemblage. Some of them hung in skewed positions for want of a hand to tilt them back to symmetry. But their curator could no more stand on her stool to reach them. Her legs shook. Neither could her shaking hands tilt them with her laathhi. So the lion kept staring directly heaven-wards while the giraffe's long neck went straight for its belly. The handiwork had stood time's test quite well, but the jute strings on which they hung were giving way after all these years. "One day they will all fall like ripe mangoes" she muttered. Or perhaps like dead leaves.

She got up from the stool and walked towards the door. Her bare feet felt the coldness of the floor. It was autumn and the floor was warning her that it would soon be cold. A few steps later her heart skipped a beat, forcing her to instinctively reach for the corner of her tiny bed. There she sat with both hands on either sides supporting her heavy frame. "It's strange how one stops fearing such anomalies once they become a regular occurrence" she thought. She could not remember the first time her heart skipped a beat, but the fear of it was still fresh. "A million beats have skipped since then, and I still live" she said almost triumphantly, looking up at the frame that hung over her bed. It was during these moments of loneliness that she remembered her parents. The woman had family but none of her own. She had friends yet was always a loner in their midst. She loved children in her house but none stayed late enough to hear her bedtime stories. She was her society's quintessential "good woman": Loved, respected, admired and lonely.

"Ones desire to be alone must triumph over ones fear of being lonely" she remembered having explained to her father during one of their many arguments, regarding marriage. She had never regretted that decision. Strong willed and determinedly she had looked after her ailing parents while knots were being tied all around and new relations blossomed in the outside world. "One need not be married to be able to give love to children" she had argued. Over the years she remained the most lovable aunt to many children, some by relation and otherwise, proving at every step that one need not be a mother to be able to love a child.

It was dusk now and the mind was tired from wandering among many a thought. The sound of the conk shells calmed the vacillating mind. The woman got up from her bed and walked out of the bedroom towards the dimly lit corridor. The left hand reached for the wall while the legs dragged slowly feeling every known crevice on the floor. On the nights when there was no power it was these cracks that she used as yardsticks to locate her coordinates. But today her trusted maid had lit the light near the staircase. Today, she could see the constant floral patterns painted all along the walls of the corridor. Those patterns were part of a trail left by her father, just like the wall hangings in the bedroom. "The good that men do live after them; The evil is interred with their bones" she mis-quoted Shakespeare.

At the end of that corridor were a flight of stairs that led to the thakur ghar. She climbed those stairs as her asthmatic breath reverberated through the walls of the attic. There she prayed and offered the customary batasha- nakul dana to the idols. Once her Gods had consumed their ambrosia they dutifully went to bed in their singhasan under an overtly ornate little blanket. Duties of the day done the woman walked out of the thakur ghar into the open terrace.

Outside, the night  was dark made darker still by the dead moss on the walls, railings and the floor. The relatives had suggested many a times to rid the place of the dead moss. But each time the lady refused. She refused to rid the house of anything that had once lived there. At times she felt this house was a living tomb in which she could talk to the departed. Strangely, she often felt alive among the dead. Tonight amidst the dead moss and the bright stars floated the disquiet of a distant quarrel. Somewhere close by a couple's domestic fight was spilling over to the street. The woman looked down at the street. There was not a vehicle or soul in sight. But, from the window across the street came a slew of allegations from the mouth of an inebriated man. He was enlightening his woman on the ways to become a "good wife". The woman was fighting back. Her voice carried a medley of emotions steeped in anger, frustration and a desperate plea for empathy. The woman looked up at the night sky and sighed. "Did you see that?" she inquired rhetorically, to her father. It had been thirty-five years since the father's last earthly quarrel with his daughter. Unlike most fathers, he had never intended to force a husband on his daughter. But he wished that she had a companion after he was gone. He wished she would not have to look for him among the stars as often. That was before the severe stroke that took away his power to argue and made him the very alibi for his daughter's logic.

The sound of a muffled sob broke her thought. As the couple fought, a little girl sat by the adjacent window with her head on the table. Her red ribbons weren't fluttering anymore. Not even from the winds of the creaking fan. "That is I" thought the lady. Her eyes moved to the other window where the mother was fighting her last round for the night. "And that is who I refused to become" said she in a strong whisper before turning away from the live soap opera.

The years played out like repetitive waves that lash the shores. The dreamer in her kept wandering from one magical world to another at the onset of every dawn only to return to more earthly self-centered thoughts as the sun set. After a million human feet had crossed the road beneath and the horizon had been raised by the multitude of burgeoning new buildings to engulf the sun to its premature death, came the day. The incessant knock on the wooden door downstairs heralded the opening of the last act. The lady slowly walked down the steep stairs as the sun rays fell through the skylight on the iron railings. She opened the main door. Through a cascade of shining black hair peeped a face of a young woman. Beside the woman stood her parents. The father respectfully greeted the lady with clasped hands. "Charity must begin at home dear sir" thought the lady sardonically, but she greeted the man and ushered the family in.

The family sat on the old woman's bed while she took her customary spot on the stool by the window. "We have come to you in the hope that a 'lady' teacher of your repute will succeed in knocking some good sense in our little girl's head", she said. My daughter does not want to marry even after we have fulfilled all her wishes to be a free soul. We beseech you to convince her how lonely and difficult life can be without a partner. This world can be cruel to unmarried women, Can it not? The callous words failed to jolt the old woman. Society had served many such volleys at her. Most of them have either failed to cross the net or have been smashed down the line by virtue of strong logic. "But this isn't a tennis match" thought the lady. It is rather a test match where one must leave and leave till the half volley is delivered. Right above where the family sat was that photograph of her parents. She could see her mother seethe in rage as her daughter was being humiliated. Her father though was ignoring the base remark from yet another ignorant stranger. He had a pipe dangling from the right side of his mouth. His intent glare fixed at his daughter. He recalled the many battles they had fought. Their thoughts were often orthogonal and the clawing at each other's beliefs often bared hidden prejudices that ashamed them both. "To marry or not to marry, the eternal question from which none can escape, least of them the woman" he sighed. Death now allowed him the luxury to play referee. The old lady envied him as she politely poured tea into the cups of her guests. She started with asking the young girl about her opinion. The girl blurted her thoughts about the low significance of marriage among her list of priorities. She wished to travel the world. Being a student of comparative history she wished to trot the globe tracing the footsteps of Ibn Batuta and Marco Polo. "Ah the perils of being a dreamer" sighed the lady, as the girl explained how she had often traveled the world in her mind through her books and imagined the shores of different countries while she stood day after day witnessing the sun set from her terrace. Marriage she explained is a natural bond between two minds that need no external force to coalesce. The old lady listened intently. There were now only two people in the room. She and her younger self. This was not a new act in the play. Just a repetition of an older one. For years there had been a dialogue between a father and his daughter in this house. That  performance had taken the shape of a soliloquy in the old man's absence. Now the dialogue was back with the daughter picking up the father's scepter while the frail voice of the young girl took hers.

"There comes a time when a woman feels lonely". When all the duties are done and the desire to be unfettered becomes tired of flying too long, the wish to rest on a branch with a loved one becomes strong. It happens to the best of us, she explained. "We are not all Ulysses my dear, no matter how much we envision ourselves to be" she gravely said, even as the ghost of her father choked on his pipe listen to his own words come out of his daughter's mouth. The parents sat sipping tea as the two women fenced with their verbal cutlasses. The girl refused to relent and the old woman was growing increasingly irritable. In rage she even called the young girl a spoil brat who hadn't learnt to obey elders. However she quickly calmed herself. Why was she not able to give an impartial opinion? What did her life have to do with a young girl's decision, she asked herself ? There was no answer from within; for her alter ego now sat across the table in a mauve silk saree.

The empty cups lay on the bedside table as collateral from the raw fight. The family had left and the lady had fallen asleep on her stool with her head resting on the rusting rods. The young girl sat in her room, thinking. She had grown up idolizing the woman by the window. In this small town with a dearth of idols she had found hers from a tender age. To her the woman was Liberty, Strength and Compassion bundled in one. She had shown that to give love one need not have a lover. To be strong one needn't have a husband's support. One can stay liberated without going astray as society predicts. The old woman was who she wanted to become one day. But the words that she heard today had shaken that foundation. While the facade still stood, the bulwark was crumbling slowly yet surely. "Marriage is not a bad thought after all; Even Mary Curie was married!" she said to herself. It was ironic that Curie's unhappy marriage was an example she had often cited to convince her friends that the institution of marriage was a perpetual hindrance in the path of personal development. The source of that anecdote had not been a reliable one and she knew it well.

A few weeks later the old woman was sitting by her window. It was night but the street below was bright as day. Rows of tube-lights wired to bamboo staffs lit up the road. The tarpaulin-clad scaffold along the terrace obstructed her view. But through the side she could see a large congregation of people. At one corner of the terrace was a make-shift shamiana where the marriage was being held. The fire burnt bright in the middle and leapt from time to time with the pouring of ghee. The girl was getting married. The purohit's recitals floated in the autumn breeze. She heard the chatter of the guests. Some praised the handsome couple while others commented on the food, the decoration, the bride's attire. the groom's complexion and a sundry other topics. The girl sat amidst it all staring at the fire, and the lady sat on her stool staring at her. For a split moment she thought their eyes met. In that moment they understood each other's struggle, pain, apprehension and the hope that all of that was untrue. "Life is that conundrum that one keeps solving till the end" thought the lady. While one searches the path to reach that end, another turns back to warn that it isn't the right one. "The truth is, there isn't a correct end, is there?" she whispered looking up at the man chewing his pipe. A faint smile crossed her lips.

Hot Wheels - A tribute to the world's best car

Photo courtesy: http://jamesdepenningphotography.wordpress.com/

"I do not understand the hyperbole surrounding these fancy German cars", pondered the yellow Ambassador taxi languishing along one of the side streets of Calcutta even as a jet black BMW 5 Series whizzed by splashing sludge over his aging body. The taxi wiped the dirt from his foggy wind shield with rusty creaking wipers. "Age teaches one to pardon insolence as inadvertent follies, and it is no different for cars" he thought. The morning sun had risen long ago but the old decrepit buildings of the city had blocked the rays from hitting the street. In a city where the past is often accused of barricading the present it is only apt that such a sight be seen, thought the 1979 Mark IV. But he loved those buildings; They had aged together. Once in a while he would bring an old tenant to these buildings. After the passenger had got down the taxi would wait a little longer just to chit-chat with his old friends. The buildings spoke less but were good listeners. "After all don't all their walls have ears", he thought and chuckled. But these were aging ears hard on hearing and the taxi had to blow its horn harder to send a message across. As he moved on to the next destination he remembered the times when his old friends were newly built and stood proudly as part of city's grand skyline. "Your day will come too!" he said, almost scornfully as he passed a newly made 40-storey block. Why he felt this disdain for the young chap was unclear, since the building only brought new folks in town and that meant more passengers and better business for him.

For about five decades the Ambassador had been the YBC (Yellow Blood Cell) of the city, acting at times as an AMbulance, a BUS or a matADOR (The highlighted letters displaying the phonetic of the Bengali pronunciation of the word). There were days when one could spot it trying to eke a path through the packed city road. Only the incessant honking and a hand frantically waving a ragged red towel gave away the presence of a medically ill occupant, and hence the urgency of the moment. In a city now ill-famed for its lack of empathy this ingenious signal of emergency had proven its worth. Rickshaws had moved over pavements, small cars had angled and bigger vehicles had made that extra inch available. Even the unconcerned jaywalker had turned to pay heed. Over time people had stopped calling the ambulance and relied more on the services of this good yellow Samaritan in times of crisis.

Talking of crisis, in a city whose dwellers have traditionally paid less respect to time it is only natural that a time-bound crisis has shown up once in a while. Be it catching an express train from the Howrah station or an airlines from the Dum Dum airport the yellow cab has inevitably been the man Friday. Almost every Bengali household has gone through heart-sinking moments when at the eleventh hour someone had realized that the taxis were not plying in the city due to a union strike! What followed ranged from preposterous suggestions to cancel the tickets to taking advantage of a neighbour's brand new Maruti800. This has endorsed the importance of the yellow Pegasus in this ever-procrastinating city.

So it was that on a regular sultry summer afternoon  the 1979 Mark IV was ambling down the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass. A couple of cars had overtaken it and each time a uniformed chauffeur had thrown a condescending look. Just as the third one was about to overtake him, a sudden rush of adrenaline ran down his spine. Instinctively he stepped on the gas all the way till the paddle touched the floor. The old BMC Austin Motors engine revved and let out a war cry. The dark carbon filled fumes clouded the rear of the vehicle. The chassis shook as the suspensions found it hard to keep pace with the sudden power of the engine. The Mark IV had left its mark and was running his final race. The chauffeur in the other car chuckled and stepped on the gas. He was certain that this was going to be an easy race.

In another time, in another place his efforts had been for a more noble cause than just the healing of a wounded ego, thought the aging vehicle. Ten years back on a similar afternoon he had sped down the Barrackpore Trunk Road. It had been a far narrower and treacherous road compared to the EM bypass. The crowd, the commotion, the regular middle class traffic comprising of public buses, auto-rickshaws, cycles, pedestrians and bullock carts made it the perfect road of the masses. And through it the yellow Ambassador had sped; Not to compete in a petty street fight with an upstart automobile, but to save the life of a passenger. An aged lady who lay in the back seat with her head on her bou ma's lap and her cold bony legs on her little grandson's. Her son was sitting in the front passenger's seat puffing away incessantly at one cigarette after another. The Mark IV was much younger then, but he was as much an automobile then as he was now. He had maneuvered through the busy road with all the dexterity that his ilk was known for; At times raising half his body over the pavement when there wasn't enough space on the road. At other times he nudged the reluctant rickshaw ever so slightly to scare the puller to make space. He jumped the red light knowing well that the lady could not wait for it to turn green. The policeman had scorned at him, but he had scorned back. He was a machine all right; But "even machines have a heart", he remember his grandfather once told him. His grandfather, they called him the Morris Oxford Landmaster. The old timers still remembered him as the best machine, and one with a big heart. As they reached the side street that led to the nursing home, Old Calcutta showed its ugly face. Brick walls of century-old buildings rose on either sides of the street restricting its width barely to the breadth of the car's chassis. Even as people moved to make way there simply wasn't enough space. And they were losing the lady in the back. Slowly and surely, she was sliding into a long dreaded slumber. The little boy was not ready to let grandma go. He did not even know what 'letting go' meant.

The Mark IV had seen many deaths. There was a time when he had stood in the taxi booth in front of the Nilratan Sirkar Hospital. He had learnt to tell by looking at the passenger's face when it was time for the short painful trip to the crematorium. Those tears, the wailing, those tortured muffled cries never left his car long after the people had left. So he knew what "letting go" meant. And today he was not going to let the old lady go. The Mark IV switched on its strong halogens as if to warn an invisible adversary and began to move, slowly and surely. The onlookers at the far end of the lane stepped inside their doors and bobbed out their indistinct heads. Almost immediately there was a long incessant screech of  hard metal scraping along the bare porous bricks as powders of cement mixed in yellow car paint kept falling. After a few agonizing minutes the Mark IV came to a halt at the entrance of the nursing home. The stretcher was laid and the lady was briskly taken away even as her daughter-in-law and grandson scrambled to keep pace behind the entourage of nurses. The son got busy in the formalities of paperwork at the reception and in making provisions for his mother's operation. The onlookers who had just witnessed the car bulldozing through their dingy lane came around to take a look at the wound. Someone mentioned a broken side mirror lying in the gutter. Another picked the metal handle of one of the doors that was lying on the street. Sardarji opened the driver's door and stood beside his car, carefully examining the wound like a trainer examining his pet lion. "Oye kuch nahi hota, Yeh to mera sher hai" he bellowed in a voice that made the others cower. The Mark IV stood there, broken, battered, and proud, just like the Sardar who had driven him to his destination. For the rest of the afternoon they both sat under the banyan tree watching people walk in and out of the infirmary. The bonnet remained open supported by a metal rod and a red towel spread over the car's front windshield. Inside, Sardarji was sleeping with his mouth open and a red wet handkerchief spread over his eyes. Like man, like machine.

The boy did not have to let go of his grandmother. Not that time. Two weeks later they went back in the same yellow taxi to their home. As she got down from the car with the help of several pairs of hands she looked at the long paintless scratch on the door. With her frail fingers she touched it and murmured something at the beaming Sardar before being taken away to the comfort of her bedroom. Only the Sardar and the car understood the muffled expression of gratitude. "It was not long before the last of those trips were made, but that was the one where I had changed destiny instead of bowing to it", proudly thought the Mark IV.

Just then the reverie broke and he realized that the EM bypass had taken an acute turn and the black BMW he was racing with was making the larger arch to stabilize itself. The Ambassador lacking the technology of his rival, conjuring all his skills tried to control the swerve, but the few moments that had been lost in the speed transition proved decisive. As the rubber screeched through the shoulder of the road, pebbles sprayed in all directions and the Mark IV was engulfed in a cloud of dust. The sound of metal hitting concrete startled all who were driving within a hunder yards. All they saw was the round rear trunk of a yellow taxi and figured that a poor outdated vehicle must have met its timely demise. The BMW sped away not wanting to be a part of the tragedy.

The dust had settled, but the Mark IV had not got back his vision back. With a cracked windshield, a broken axle, a damaged carburetor and a blood smeared turban resting on its steering wheel he lay there by the highway. The city lights were glowing brighter with every moment inching towards dusk. A couple of fancy German cars raced by as the executives returned to the comfort of their lavish homes. This time the Mark IV bore no malice. He had fought his final battle in this colosseum of a city. Immortality was his. The smoke stopped coming out of the exhaust pipes.



PS: I grew up in Calcutta, and that means I walked in and out of the Ambassador through most of my childhood. The image of the car remained unchanged from the time when I had to be hoisted by a pair of adult hands to the back seat till the time when those adult hands became mine. So when I saw an old battered yellow taxi with paint scraped from the side door from some old skirmish I felt sorry for the old chap. I thought how representative it was to the spirit of a city that eggs on while disregarding the advancements in the world around and the rebuke it faces for being old-school. Those seats torn at places not only reveal the foam and choir beneath but also tell many a tale. They tell of trips when newborns were carried home in these seats; of teerth yatras made by the aged to nearby Tarapeeth, Mayapur and Nabadweep; of weekend family trips to the Botanical Garden , or to the chiria-khana. The car epitomises the city itself. A city that has never promised luxury and comfort, without a little bit of pain.