Dear Thama

As of today, it’s been a year since you left us. I remember being so shocked and in denial that I still went to the Maroon 5 concert that very evening and actually enjoyed it. I didn’t forgive myself for doing that for a long time. I guess I just couldn’t imagine a life without you, or anyone who matters to me as much as you did, in it. I still can’t.

You were, to say the least, amazing. You were a strong, respected woman, a wonderful wife to my dadu, an incredible mother to your four children and an even more incredible mother-in-law. As a child I saw you and loved you through my parents’ eyes, because I was too young to know you personally and have an opinion of you as an individual. But I saw the tears in papa’s eyes when he sang that song Aamar Saadhna Mitilo and I couldn’t help but cry because I saw the emotion he must have felt for you every time he sang that song. I always thought of you when I heard that song, and I think no one sings it like him. I heard stories of mamma adjusting to a new household and a new family and she would always tell me how lucky she was to have you as a mother, and I looked up to you even more. You would also tell me stories of what papa did when he was young. It was as though you and dadu taught me how to love and appreciate my parents even more than I did already.

As I grew up, and developed a connection with you and dadu independent of my parents, I came to love you even more. I think the first time I spent time with you alone as a person who could form opinions independent of my parents was during the week I spent in Calcutta in one of the winters while I was at Woodstock. I remember going around the house in the afternoons while you and dadu slept, closing the windows to avoid the mosquitoes that came in the evening. At night we used to talk till we fell asleep, as I did with my pishis later. I think that’s when I picked up the habit of listening to music when I had trouble sleeping. I still do that, and I know you loved doing that. But for me, the most precious moments I’ve spent alone with you are the times you and I sat together to cut up your old saris and sew little diapers for Brishti. I have never felt closer to you than I did in those moments. It was also the last time I spent with you, and I wish I had had more time. At the same time, it was the first time I met my niece, and the first time in my life that I ever felt a maternal instinct towards a baby. I love her in a way I have never loved someone before, and it was because of the way you taught me to be around her. Also, watching you with her gave me an idea of what a wonderful and natural mother you must have been to the four amazing individuals of your creation.

I miss you so much. I miss your narkol nadu, nimki and pati shapta. I miss you feeding me bhaat-bhaat-maach, and sometimes maach-maach-bhaat, and getting all the fish bones out for me, and telling me stories of tia pakhi and rakhhosh at the same time. I miss wiping my wet hands on your soft, old cotton sari. I miss watching you use your Nivea and your talcum and comb your long hair and tie it with a black thread and put on sindoor and bindi with that cute little two-sided instrument that I’ve never seen anyone else use before. I miss watching you knit on the long rexine sofa, feet up, with ETV Bangla on full volume, while dadu reads his second or third newspaper. I miss taking all the nokul dana after your daily pujo. I miss the way you said hello on the phone; bodo pishi says it exactly like you used to. I even miss you yelling at papa when he forcefully made you stand up straight. I miss your childhood stories of when you lived in a big house in a jungle. I miss your smell and your voice. I miss you always being on the phone with your sisters and your daughters. I have such vivid sights and smells of your memories in my mind that couldn’t possibly ever go away.

You are my role model. You fought and overcame breast cancer. You were the wife, mother, mother-in-law, grandmother and great-grandmother that I someday hope to be. The entire family revolves around you and dadu. I guess you lived a full, hopefully happy and satisfied life, and you had to leave one day. But you were such a huge part of my life that it’s impossible, even after one year, to cope with your absence. I haven’t come to terms with the fact that everyone got to say goodbye to you except me. I haven’t been to Calcutta since before you left us and I can’t imagine that house without you in it. Maybe when I go there next I will get some closure. But just so you know, I’ll still be looking for you on the terrace, waving goodbye when I leave your shrine. I love you.

Crossroads

Through the tainted window of my eyes

I see in wait a hundred epic stories

Standing at the same corner of their lives,

All with the amity of their own quandaries,

Watching the movement of hurdles upon hurdles

Awaiting a sign to cross the road.

Often misinterpreted as merely the general masses

Seeking a sort of desperate conformity,

Each one endures the weight of matchless burdens

Secreted behind the smiles and colloquity;

They yearn to rid of the gratuitous anguish

But it is a secondary purpose to seek.

A change of signal encourages movement

And a pulse of hope propels the multitude forward

As they move on, despite their accompanying torment,

Toward their own primary destinations anchored

To their personal, exclusive characterizations

Of what one may call success.

My father's reply to Sanctity

You must actively perceive events with ease

Develop innate aplomb in matchless oscillation

While engaging in vibrant gust and breeze

Experience the serenity of stasis in dynamic manifestation.

Sanctity

A gust of wind; a fragrant breeze;

Practiced aplomb or carefree pirouette…

Do I passively perceive events with ease,

Or must I engage in a dynamic duet?

The black, the white, and everything in between

Characterize this ambiguous entity

Wherein two worlds struggle in a manner routine

To maintain an inimitable sanctity.

Sometimes a sacred covenant

But often a skirmish for justice,

It is one minute misread as ailment,

And the next as an alluring stasis.

Whether resulting in helplessness or exaltation,

Its existence will always be sure.

But perhaps we will forever long for an explanation

To these sentiments obscure.

Redemption

A riven heart, a crippled wing,

The touch of a caring soul

And redemption is attained.

We dare venture not past the precincts of sanity.

But mustn’t this be assumed natural?

Why, then, are our lives stained

With crimes against humanity?

It truly is a pity;

More than once have we viewed glimpses,

Through portals of crude reality,

Of apathy beyond perception.

So often the heart winces

At the perverted proceedings of the rabid

And mourns the system’s imperfection.

Yet we must all dream of an unblemished world,

Of relishing a unanimous reception,

Of the credence of contrariety,

And, someday, perhaps of redemption.

The I must go.

Behind the dew-covered lucid wall
With a stony stare in its glassy eyes,
Refusing to look at anyone at all
Is the silhouette I despise.

It only peers at me; it penetrates my soul,
Twisting it into grotesque distortions.
I scream in agony at the malice of its hold,
Yet cherish the masochistic bliss in a portion
Of my wretched conscience.

Someday I hope to defeat the impermeability
Of this translucent membrane,
If only for the sake of my own sanity
And for the sake of the hearts in which
Its terror still reigns.

The I must go.
But, must it?

What is God?

Who is God? I asked myself one day.
What is it that the word means?
Does it stand for some superior Personality,
Abundant in Extravagance, in Divinity,
Or simply the meaning of true Felicity?

I believe God is nature.
For nature gives birth to life itself,
As easily as it may take it away.
It is the Perfect,
The ideal for us imperfect creatures.
Hence, God is nature.

I believe God is truth.
For “the truth shall set you free.”
In a world of images, of relativity,
We crave the impossible, the Absolute.
Hence, God is truth.

I believe God is the mind,
To me, my mind; to you, yours.
For the mind is the undefeatable,
And potentially infinite in capacity.
It conceives the inconceivable,
And remains, to date, incomprehensible,
A power we are yet to completely find.
Hence, God is the mind.

Therefore, for me God is science.
For science reveals the Ultimate Truth,
The mysteries of nature,
And the aptitude of our minds.
God is science.

God, I then realized, is just a name,
An idea, a concept;
A synonym for your answer to every question.
In essence, the solution.
A potential Creator,
A possible Sustainer,
An inevitable Destroyer.

God is what you truly believe in.

Yet again...

I looked down at my face
reflected in the puddle of water
Staring at a stranger
submerged in a pool of sin,
of regrets, of mistakes...
lost in the surrounding din
of temptations;
ignorant of a thousand sensations...

when suddenly a cheery drop
distorted my puddle,
and what followed after
was a shower of solutions;
as the rain swirled down
glistening leaves
cleansing all in its way,
purging me, it seems,
of all such thoughts, and leaving
behind, a new ray
of fresh hope.

I couldn't tell if this ripple
in my puddle of glum
was the rain of Mother Nature
or the flow of my own emotions;
caused by the cloudy skies
or my betrayal of all devotions
that I held close to my heart.
I wished tomorrow would be a new day,
and for many, a fresh new start.

But in vain.
I long for another sign,
for clearance of my mind,
yet again, bless me, with solutions.
Yet again.

A cloudy morning.

The glory of a subtle grey
Sweeps over like an early autumn breeze
As a solitary soul makes her way down,
Amongst hurried lives and whispering trees,
On a beautifully melancholic morning.

Mournful Bliss.

Goodbye seems so sad a word,
and yet the smile on my lips...
situation asks the heart to mourn,
but the mind is soaring in bliss.

Ambiguity fills my eyes with tears
and content fills my heart
as I wave away those memories dear
for another fresh new start.

Hold on I will, to these chapters past
While scripting those anew...
And with these memories, mine to take,
I now bid thee adieu.

The power of silence

It was that unusual dread,
As the awkward quiet engulfed the air,
As I stood there with my arms spread,
And they walked away, with no love to spare.
It was over. The silence told me so.

And so began the saga of sorrows,
The dominance of pain, the vengeance of foes,
While standing with a foot on my chest
Remained the power of silence.

Silence forced me into solitude.
It told me of my misfit ways
Unaccepted by society
And represented, yet again, by that quiet
That I dreaded so much
How I longed for a touch
Of sound, of belonging…

And so continued the saga of sorrow,
Of pain, of a heart left hollow,
While crushing me with its full force
Ruled the power of silence.

At many a time, I am accused,
Judged, misunderstood, or perhaps simply used.
I console myself, and justify their offense.
Let them have the benefit of doubt,
Since my only defense
Is silence.

But today is a different day
As I seek refuge under this tree,
The same quiet gives me a peace of mind
And I proceed to conquer the inner me,
I gain self-knowledge, a bliss, an ecstasy,
The cage is open, and I’m set free.
Such is the power of silence.

Time

Flying, fleeting at furious speeds
Whizzing past the past,
The memories of the remembering,
And for the lacing, the needs;
As life halts, watching, its face aghast.

Precious as a pearl, fickle as a flower,
His disastrous arrogance is to be feared,
All hopes of immobility smeared…
To quicken to His pace cannot be,
Yet lay the dreams of many…
Bearers of His fruit, victims of His pride,
His ways are tricky as the games of light.

He arouses in His subjects a hope,
An anticipation for tomorrow may it be,
When before the blink of an eye
One mourns the slipping of eternity.

“To see the world in a grain of sand”
Is to comprehend Chronos.

Break the Glass.

Tied down in chains;
Wings are cut off:
Aimless obligation
Can I afford declination
Of “unnecessary” pain?

The moon shines, as I see:
A bright dazzle
Among the weak, blaming stars;
A courtroom, a farce.
Witness to all of me…

What keeps the glass
On the table?
A sweep, a slight touch
And push it over the edge:
Violate all class.

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust.

A moment of silence, a day to mourn;
A few minutes of inconvenience, and the memory is gone.
The sun gleams shamelessly in irony,
And birds sing of immortality.
Where are the ash-stained clouds?

You witness the forgotten Souls
And the holes They leave behind;
Only to be replaced by another new
Temporarity that we shall hold
Close to our hearts.
Until the Day that is due.

The Day, no doubt, is inevitable.
But the days preceding that
Are mine to mold.
For no material shall prevail
except my deeds and destiny.
Only You will remain,
With the permanence of Gold.

For the Day will come,
When angels of eternity taunt my mortality,
As I close these eyes, and succumb to Infinity.
The Day will come.

From Dust I am born,
and Dust I shall become.