The Smile

The street was shrouded in thick mist when I first beheld it, after getting off the taxi. It was a little over seven in the morning, and we had just arrived at Zakaria Street to have nihari at the famed Sufia restaurant near the famous Nakhoda Mosque.
Across the veil of mist, life had just began to stir on the street at the other end of which, I was told, is our destination. The avenue was flanked on both sides by edifices which seemed straight out of Burton's passages describing towns to the west of the Indus. Calcutta prides itself on its heritage of colonial buildings of Indo-European architecture and yet the ones which I was looking at, were unlike any other I had seen before. The latticed windows, the ornate railings of quaint balconies, the sprawling courtyards of the buildings caused me to stop after every few steps to soak in the beauty of the architecture; I was perhaps marvelling at the altered skyline of domes and minarets when a voice suddenly boomed from behind, " Supreme Lungis. Are you looking for Supreme Lungis , madam?"
" Huh?", I started and I turned around. There stood a tall, lean bearded man in a maroon woolen jacket and brown pajamas. He was a young man and perhaps, even good looking with his gaunt, sharp lineaments, but I had no chance to dwell upon that for he smiled at me as he spoke to me again,                 " Supreme Lungis are the finest in Calcutta, madam and our store is right here."
And it was the oddest, little smile I had ever beheld on a human visage. His eyes crinkled into his long lashes, and his mouth, hitherto hidden in the jungle of his thick beard, fell open to suddenly become conspicuous. This simultaneous disappearance of the eyes, and appearance of a pink mouth gave him, this salesman, the looks of a child. A child who is trying hard to ingratiate himself to a stern adult with his most winsome smile and yet, the smile also gives away his irreverence for the same adult.
Meanwhile, this bearded child with a strange, little smile continued, " Our lungis are made from 100% cotton, madam. Maybe you would like to check them out to gift some to your friends; they make nice souvenirs. Won't..." He could not continue enumerating the immense advantages of buying Supreme Lungis because he was interrupted by the petulant ringing of my mobile phone. I reluctantly answered the call; it was from Alain, one of the friends I had come to Zakaria Street with. In a voice that evinced vexation as well as anxiety, he asked why was I taking so long to join them at the restaurant where they had reached apparently several minutes ago. I must have turned away from my waylayer while speaking to Alain because when I finally finished talking, I realised that he had left. All this while, I had been too startled to spare any thought about Supreme Lungis but now I looked around and did see a tiny shop with a red signboard that had Supreme Lungis written over it in white. As I hurriedly walked towards the eatery where my friends awaited me, I decided to visit the shop on our way back.
It was about 9 o' clock by the time we finished our meal throughout which rather than admiring the decor or ambience of the place, I had let the image of the smiling mien of the bearded child-man flash before my eyes. My friends, surprised though they were, when I told them about my interest in buying lungis, came along to the store. A small room housed the shop which comprised of several shelves on the wall with glass covers, and a divan underneath them where sat the shopkeepers and their customers. When we walked in, two men were sitting on the divan, and I felt a pang of disappointment on discovering that the man who resembled a child with his winsome smile, wasn't one of them. They both looked up: one was painfully thin and probably a septuagenarian, and the other was a rotund man in his forties. They both had hennaed hair and were garbed in spotlessly white kurta- pajama with shawls over them.
" Hmmm...", I said gingerly. "We would like to see some of your lungis, please."
" Of course, please be seated", replied the younger man. He then did the needful in showing us several lungis of different prints and colours. I knew that nobody I was planning to gift these to back home at Grenoble , would have any opportunity to wear these sartorial wonders, even if they had the interest simply because of the cold, Alpine weather there, and yet, I ended up buying five lungis, all the while hoping that the boy who had praised Supreme Lungis to the sky, to  me on the streets would make an appearance. A voice in my head was endlessly chiding me for having such childish hopes, while another was fervently encouraging me. The younger shopkeeper chatted with Alain and Jacqueline but I hardly paid heed. When he was performing the final customary ritual of thanking the customers for visiting, I suddenly blurted out, " You see, its your salesman who owes this thanks because he is the one who convinced me to visit your shop."
The men exchanged glances and then, looked at me quizzically. The emaciated, old man said, " But what do you mean madam? We have no salesman. It's a small shop as you can see for yourself and I run it with my son Aftab here".
I was rather taken aback and also conscious of my friends' questioning gazes. " But there was a boy, ahem, sorry, a man out on the streets," I said. " He was...", I wanted so much to, but stopped short of describing the smile to these people, and instead said, " He was most insistent that I visit this shop and I assumed him to be your employee. But maybe he was just a helpful local." Seeing an expression of disbelief mixed with suspicion creeping up on their faces, I stood up and left, bading them a hasty adieu. Out on the street, Jacqueline asked me if I had smoked up before coming out this morning.
A few steps ahead, on the pavement, by the walls of Hindustan Musafirkhana, another quaint, old building, an old man was selling tea. Jacqueline and Alain stopped by while I sauntered into the courtyard of the musfirkhana. There were flowerbeads lining the courtyard, and I was admiring them as well as the columns of the portico of the lodge when suddenly my attention was arrested by a painting that hung from the wall near the main door of the musafirkhana. It was a portrait of the bearded boy; and yes, he was smiling. A slackjawed smile beneath a pair of crinkled eyes. As endearing as it was mocking, it- the smile- managed to efface of solemn gravity of the dark, wooden frame of the portrait. He was dressed in the manner of an Englishman of Edwardian times, I thought, with a bowler hat, white waistcoat and shimmering black dress coat. Next to the portrait was a marble plaque that read, ' This Musafirkhana was built by Mr. Aaron Ainsworth and his wife, Begum Roshanara Husain, in the memory of their beloved son, Rizwan Allan Ainsworth, who passed away in 1905 in London, in his twenty sixth year.'

How I flirt with elan and make myself irresistibly attractive

At a really cool party, in the wee hours of morning:
" All my friends want to be married to rich men, and settle down. Isn't it kind of sad?"
"Why? What do you wish for?"
"I don't know. I don't wish to be married. I guess I am only waiting for a soul mate."
"Soul mate? Like Casper the friendly ghost?"
"Oh you are so funny. Where do you get your lines from?"
" There is a book, actually."
"Your humour is very British."
" The book is American."
"Oh by the way, I am sorry. Really sorry for asking you out last week..."
"Chill"
"No, but I am sorry that I like you"
"What?"
"Ahem...I meant I am sorry that I told you that I like you."
"Oh relax. Hahaha."
" I am so sorry. I always act like an awkward oaf, a blithering idiot around you."
"Haha."
" Do you think you might be interested in having lunch with me at the Spanish cafe next Saturday?"
"Hahaha. No."

twin preoccupations

I am pursuing Kant through his 'Logic' and Abdul Alhazred through the 'Call of Cthulhu' simultaneously. Let's see where they together lead me to.

Pain, Holmes, Dupin, Byomkesh and the missing women

I woke up this morning with a disconsolate, restless heart-I was experiencing, I realized within moments, an after-effect of the terrifying nightmares of the previous night. Strangely, the nightmare was populated with authors and literary characters I have endlessly daydreamed about since childhood. How did I come to be terrorized in a dream by my beloved protagonists and their creators, I began to wonder. These were my first thoughts this morning. I spent the weekend reading Monsieur Pain by the late Roberto Bolano. It is a slim volume and hence, when I began reading it on Friday evening, I had confidently told myself that I should be able to complete reading it by Sunday afternoon. I have read the author’s 2666 and Nazi literature in the Americas-both had driven me to the edge of reason, filled me with menacing premonitions and mocked my strong sense of propriety and morality. The texts in a manner jeered me for attaching so much value to liberal ethics and consequently, exhilarated me! Naturally, when I saw the title Monsieur Pain on the shelf of a book store in Calcutta last week on a rainy afternoon, I found myself being chocked by the same sense of exhilaration. The jacket stated that the novel is a ‘noir conspiracy’ evocative of the works of Poe and Borges; I immediately knew that I had to buy the book and that I had to read it soon. There are few people I have pined for as much as Edgar Allan Poe and there are few authors whose works I re-read as many times as those of Borges, painstakingly trying to make sense of every sentence he wrote but with so little success. So, I knew I had to read Monsieur Pain at the earliest yet I needed the right ambience as well to read a work like this one. I did not exactly know what would constitute a suitable ambience but when I looked out of the window next to my desk this Friday evening and saw that it was raining heavily, I knew I could begin reading. The narrative is rendered dark and mysterious by the nimbi which gathered over Paris sky in the week of 1938 in which the story unfolds; the eponymous protagonist is confronted and unsettled by downpours often and so would I be, I decided watching the sheet of rain which shrouded the evening. I read it in a state of bliss throughout Saturday and Sunday and when, I finished reading it not in afternoon but sometimes, around 11 pm in the night on Sunday, I was feeling strangely vexed. “It is all right,” I told myself. “Works of Bolano always perplex you. You would begin to enjoy it soon.“ This is what I had consoled myself to sleep that night, that Sunday when I dreamt a most terrible dream. I dreamt that the cadaver of a young woman in men’s clothes has been discovered on a pavement of a grimy, narrow street in a seedy neighbourhood of a city, I do not know which one but it was most probably, a European city. I dreamt that Monsieur Pain had stumbled upon the body and in a state of nervousness, he requested his friend and compatriot Monsieur Dupin to find out who the woman was and how did she meet her death. It was palpable that she has been murdered. But the newspapers got whiff of the matter and people wanted Mr. Sherlock Holmes to investigate the case as they were not familiar with the skills of Dupin. Both found that the woman was an Asian and most probably an Indian. Holmes and Dupin both agreed that they should also seek the assistance of the ‘bhadrolok’ detective from Bengal, Byomkesh Bakshi. I dreamt further that the woman was found to be a book collector; the detectives found that she was an aficionado of detective fiction. They found that she was an amateur detective herself and I saw them looked utterly bewildered when they discovered that she was killed when she tried to investigate a murder mystery herself, dressed as a man. I saw the dead body and to my utter horror, found that the body was mine. I was the murdered amateur detective! I don’t remember anything more about the dream, the nightmare. Perhaps there was nothing more to it; perhaps, I imagined some bits of it the next morning, this morning, to make it coherent but the visages of Holmes, Dupin, Pain and Bakshi-a beak nosed face with a pipe hanging loosely from its lips; an emaciated face with sunken eyes; a bespectacled faced with a mop of curly, unkempt hair; and a well-groomed, brown face-had all expressed sheer astonishment on discovering the cause of the murder. And I was reminded of the expression intermittently throughout the day. Why did they look so confounded, I wondered, on discovering that a woman wanted to follow their foot-steps and not merely admire them for their acumen but be like them? This might sound a wee bit melodramatic but the nightmare was a turning point of my life. I found myself asking questions which mattered to me as a lover of literature, as a fan of classic detective yarns, and as a woman. Why are the most celebrated, best loved votaries of the intellect in the universe of detective fiction invariably men? Why are Holmes, Dupin, Father Brown and Brother William so conspicuously lacking in female friends? Why do they hardly ever have women as adversaries or as collaborators? Why did these men not confront women in their adventures, more often than they did? (Of course, there have been innumerable attempts by all save Doyle himself to depict Irene Adler as the love interest of Holmes and Guy Ritchie did show Ms. Adler making her way through the underbelly of late 19th century London with remarkable finesse). But why could women not be found at the scenes of the crimes showing active interest in solving them? I heard a feeble voice inside me saying, “There is Nancy Drew of course and the girls in Famous Five.” But another stronger voice retorted harshly, “ But George behaved like a boy and Nancy Drew was well, the stereotypical American ‘chick’ who solved cases in between enjoying male attention and parents’ adoration. Remember how you despised her as a kid?” I suddenly found myself looking for the answers to my questions in the essay Feminism and Philosophy by Jean Grimshaw . The author draws attention to the proclivity of Western philosophy towards binarism-male-female, rational-emotional, natural-cultural, production-reproduction. She states how there is a hierarchy in the binarism and the privileged terms are always associated with men and treated as male characteristics. The qualities of rationality and reasoning have therefore been treated for very long as male traits whereas women were constructed to be irrational, emotional and incapable of intellectual endeavours like search for higher truths of life and at a more base level, of maintaining sang-froid in difficult situations. Is that the reason as to why not one woman was featured in literature as a gifted ratiocinator? I realized that if all my fantasies of meeting Dupin or Holmes ever could come true perhaps, these men would treated me with indifference if I expressed my admiration for them and with alarm or even disdain if I expressed a wish to work with them. Maybe, it is time for me undergo another crisis of faith. Maybe, I will emerge with new idols to worship at the end of it. Maybe, I need to initiate an internet search on women ratiocinators. Maybe, I will begin to read The No.1 ladies detective agency. I certainly need new heroes.

To the Stranglers

This is a sad day-I am struggling to save myself from getting drowned in a quagmire of indignation and disappointment today. I still cannot overcome the sense of disbelief which gripped me when I discovered that the press had accused you of writing a sexist song. Why did that have to happen to me? I have already spent two hours in the morning listening to the song over and over again trying to analyze its lyrics and mulling over its semantics in a desperate attempt to detect misogyny in it. But I still cannot fathom what was there in the song which made so many consider it to be disrespectful towards women-maybe, that’s because English is still an alien language for me; a mystery which tantalizes and teases me every evening that I meet her in the company of Joyce or Woolf or Banville or Poe but remains nonchalant to me every time I try to have a rendezvous with her by myself. But it is equally likely that I have been in love with you for too long to be willing to admit even to myself that you could write a misogynistic song, though there is certainly something sexually evocative about it. Well, did you intend the lyrics to be sexist? Strolling along minding my own buisness/ well there goes a girl and a half/ she's got me going up and down/ she's got me going up and down/ walking on the beaches looking at the peaches/ well i got the notion girl that you got some suntan lotion in that bottle of yours/ spread it all over my peelin' skin baby/ that feels real good/ all this skirt lappin' up the sun/ lap me up/ why don't you come on and/ lap me up/ walking on the beaches looking at the peaches/ well there goes another one just lying down on the sand dunes/ i'd better go take a swim and see if i can cool down a little bit/ coz you and me woman/ we got a lotta things on our minds (you know what i mean)/ walking on the beaches looking at the peaches/ will you just take a look over there (where?) there/ is she tryin' to get outta that clitares?/ liberation for women/ thats what i preach/ preacher man/ walking on the beaches looking at the peaches/ oh shit/ there goes the charabang/ looks like im gonna be stuck here the whole summer/ well what a bummer/ i can think of a lot worse places to be/ like down in the streets/ or down in the sewer/ or even on the end of a skewer… Well, yes I just listened to the song once again and it is indeed laden with sexual innuendos but I still cannot feel anything save perplexity as I try to understand why did it outrage women and journalists who acrimoniously alleged that yours was a band of male chauvinists and the song was distastefully sexist. It also won’t be easy to try to quit being in love with you. I have spent so many Sunday afternoons downloading your songs from the internet, reading your interviews available online and watching videos of your songs on Youtube that nothing seems to be of gloomier prospect than weekends without you. Ah! Those afternoons have been a veritable feast for my senses. Every time I listened to Hugh Cornwell sing ‘Golden Brown, texture like sun…’ I found myself being transformed into a lotus-eater enjoying the melancholia, the day dreaming which languor invokes. I on the other hand, found that my heart was replete with an ineffably exciting energy whenever I watched JJ Burnel croon ‘Something better change’; can listening to a song ever lead to the release of endorphin in the body? I am not sure; my knowledge of biology has always been rather poor. As I discovered more and more of your songs, I so much wished that I was a young woman living in England in the 1970s so that I could attend your concerts, admire your irreverence, despise the mainstream media for being hostile to you and investigate the revolutionary potential of your songs. I don’t know if I like ‘No more heroes…’ better than ‘Get a grip on yourself’ but I listen to both of them whenever I need to reassure myself that my solitude does not make me lonely. I am not sure who I think was hotter-Hugh Cornwell, the lead singer with a maddening, haunting voice or JJ Burnel, the bass player with disheveled hair but I know that their sensuality laid in the eccentricity which they exuded as they performed. I have been so madly in love with both of them along with the astonishingly strange songs which they created with Dave Greenfield on the key board and Jet Black, playing the drums that I almost loathe myself for not discovering them earlier and for allowing myself to let my taste in music remain weak due to listening to too much of Bollywood music as a child. Yet the question shall always chafe me, vex me if you actually have a sexist song or two-I am too scared to listen to ‘London Lady’ lest I should actually discover that you had, in your enthusiasm to portray yourself as bold and menacing, allowed yourself to do something as banal and commonplace as write a misogynistic song- in your otherwise brilliantly original oeuvre. It is excruciating a discovery that you who composed a song like ‘Strange little girl’ could have referred to us as a ‘piece of meat’. But then JJ Burnel said in an interview in 2011 “I think probably politically we f@@@ed it up. We made so many enemies we screwed up a lot of people…. I never got the sexist thing.” I think I will believe him. He thinks that you are still a viable band; maybe I shall get to attend your concert some day in near future. Maybe, I can meet JJ Burnel and clarify for myself if lyrics of ‘Peach’ and ‘London Lady’ actually had sexist connotations? Were you ever a votary of male chauvinism?

The Raven and the rain...

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more.'

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore -
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
`'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -
This it is, and nothing more,'

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
`Sir,' said I, `or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you' - here I opened wide the door; -
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, `Lenore!'
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, `Lenore!'
Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
`Surely,' said I, `surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore -
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -
'Tis the wind and nothing more!'

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door -
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door -
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
`Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,' I said, `art sure no craven.
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore -
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning - little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door -
Bird or beast above the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as `Nevermore.'

But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only,
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered - not a feather then he fluttered -
Till I scarcely more than muttered `Other friends have flown before -
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.'
Then the bird said, `Nevermore.'

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
`Doubtless,' said I, `what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore -
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of "Never-nevermore."'

But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore -
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking `Nevermore.'

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
`Wretch,' I cried, `thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he has sent thee
Respite - respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! -
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -
On this home by horror haunted - tell me truly, I implore -
Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels named Lenore?'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

`Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!' I shrieked upstarting -
`Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;


And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted - nevermore!
Edgar Allan Poe, 1845.

I wish I could encounter and engage with the raven perched on my chamber door more often than I can. I wish I could devote myself to reading Poe more frequently than I do. I wish I could read 'quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore' for a living. I wish, I do wish.

I had checked the meaning of 'errata' in Chambers online dictionary only a little while ago but now, i can only vaguely recall the meaning. It has something to do with making errors.
Yesterday, I had began reading Pessoa's 'Death of Ricardo Reiss' and had learned the meanings of a number of words associated with the sea-prow, gangplank, quay. I have already forgotten how to use them in sentences. English is increasingly becoming alien to me; the language baffles me more and more, it disappoints me. Do i suffer from Dyslexia?

Feminism, the Sex Pistols and…nothing!

A youngish woman sits by a desk in a small room reading a thick volume that bears the title ‘_ Companion to Philosophy’ on its cover. She seems thoroughly engrossed in reading but every once in a while, she nods her head in a peculiar, dromedary-like manner. On a laptop on the desk, music blares.
She presently begins to shake her head vigorously but rhythmically to the tempo of The Eleven by the Grateful Dead which is playing on her laptop. She evens puts the book away and stands up; she begins to dance. But it is not really dancing what she is doing-she is gesticulating with her hands raised over her head which she nods in the same fashion, reminding one of a camel. The next song which plays on her laptop is The fish cheer by Joe Mc Donald and then plays, Because the night by Patty Smith. She continues her gesticulations through the next songs My Baby by Janis Joplin and God save the queen by The Sex Pistols. As the vocalist croons ‘No future, no future…’she gleefully yells out those words too at the top of voice.
It seems as if she is imagining herself to be at a concert.
She is dressed in a pair of faded, baggy trousers and an equally washed out t-shirt with the image of a man printed on it. The man’s eyes are shut and his mouth is covered and next to this rather curious image are the words, ‘Martin Niemoller, concentration camp detainee in Nazi Germany’. The t-shirt is very loose too but it is still obvious that its wearer is extremely thin. Her hair looks unwashed and disheveled and her face, though clean, looks woefully pale and plain as it has no makeup on it. Her eyebrows- very thick and dark and almost masculine- are rather conspicuous in her otherwise nondescript face. If visage is the mirror to the soul, then she seems to be a hippie at heart. As a matter of fact, if one scrutinizes the glass covered book case on the wall next to the desk, one would find copies of poetry of Allan Ginsberg and On the Road by Jack Kerouac. No wait! The copy of Collected poems by Ginsberg is on the desk itself next to The Book of Evidence by John Banville and a bunch of print-outs of what seem like academic papers; the page on the top has the title Immigrant as pollutant.
As the song Society by Eddie Vedder begins to play, she returns to her chair and resumes reading. She reads without any movement of body or head for another fifteen minutes or so during which more songs featured in the movie In to the Wild gets played.
When suddenly the lull gets broken and Stayin Alive by BeeGees gets played, she jumps out of the chair and moves her long, narrow fingers as if she playing her invisible guitar with passion. She also increases the volume of her music player which soon causes her much vexation. A middle aged lady suddenly appears at the door of the room.
“What are you doing? Do I not tell you all the time that this is not your college hostel or your rented flat? This is our house and you cannot play all these strange music in such a loud volume.” The lady scowled and reproached the woman in the discoloured t-shirt with Martin Niemoller’s image printed on it.
“But it’s only eleven o’clock in the morning and it’s a Sunday. It’s not eleven at night.”
“Yes, you are right-it’s a Sunday. Have I not told you hundreds of times to bathe early on holidays? What perverse pleasure do you get in resembling a vagabond? What would our relatives and neighbours think if they see you in this condition? “
“I don’t care about people who are so stupid as to judge me on the basis of my clothes.”
“You don’t, do you? Well guess what, I care and I will ensure that you do too.” The middle aged lady said menacingly and then added in a softer voice,” Do you realize you have not had your breakfast yet? You complain that I lose my temper too often but what option do you leave me with but to get angry when you behave in such thoughtless, sloppy manner? Now, go and bathe and then have breakfast. I have made egg rolls today.”
“But why did you? I mean good for you that you made them but am not going to have them. You know that I have turned vegetarian. I am not going to eat eggs.” The youngish woman looked resolved to oppose this time.
“Ah! Practice vegetarianism when you stay alone in Bombay. I have brought you up on a diet of fish and eggs and meat; you have to eat them here. “
“But I don’t want to, ma. “
“Don’t argue with me now.” The lady reprimands the woman again. “Turn off the unbearable noise immediately and go to the bathroom now.”
The woman storms out of the room, looking indignant.
The song which is now playing is the We are the Sleepyheads by Belle and Sebastian but the stern lady closes the music player on the laptop and she shuts the tome which the woman has been reading; the title of the essay which she has been reading is Feminism and Philosophy.

Femininity

Makeup caked my face giving it a pasty, ghoulish appearance. I had painted my lips garishly red and put an excessive quantity of kohl in my eyes as well. I had also draped myself up in a golden hued sari which shimmered under bright lights. The bangles in both my scrawny hands jangled as I walked while my thin neck hurt because of the unwonted weight of the heavy gold necklace that was dangling from it. I had worn high heeled sandals and donned new, elaborate coiffure-things I had never done before.
The view that the mirror had presented when I stood before it was dreary-I could be either a woman of the street or a lady of an ultra-conservative, affluent and patriarchal household. I was not sure I wanted to resemble either but I was determined to appear in public dressed in this fashion. I wanted to find out for myself if by dressing up in the conventional, feminine fashion, made me feel feminine-a feeling that had eluded me for the eighteen years that I had spent with the gender identity of ‘woman’. I, thus, attended my cousin’s wedding last summer to evoke the femininity latent in me. As I walked besides my mother into the hotel banquet hall where the wedding reception was held that evening, I was determined to not feel awkward or embarrassed of my gaudy appearance. Women are supposed to exude feminine charm by being graceful and pretty and since it is widely believed that cosmetics, ornaments and a winsome smile are what women need to assert their beauty and grace, I decided to test their efficacy under my mother’s experienced guidance.
I had not been in the party for even ten minutes when I became aware that several pairs of eyes were on me. My aunt-the groom’s mother-came up to us and said, “Nalini, is that you? Oh you look so grown up and beautiful! The sari is suiting you well too. Your mom cannot complain that you have pathetic dressing sense anymore.” She grinned and began talking to my mother, in whose smile I thought I saw, a hint of pride. Maybe she would finally forgive me for turning up at the last family function in clothes which I had deemed to be appropriate for the occasion but which, according to her, had made me look little better than a rag-picker amidst all my well dressed relatives.
My other aunt-mother’s younger sister-inspected me now from head to toe and commented, “Did I not tell you that you are actually not bad looking? See how you have been transformed into a pleasant and attractive young lady with a little effort! Do you feel the difference?” She asked me, sounding triumphant.
“No, I don’t feel any difference yet. But these things take time; how different is it from Buddha’s enlightenment? I am sure that I would start feeling like a lady soon. Thanks, aunt.” I replied, smiling what I felt was my most alluring smile and went ahead to find myself a place to sit because my legs had already began to ache. I heard say as I walked past her, “Don’t jump around in the sari.”
This aunt of mine loved me dearly-she had given me the enlightening advice after I had refused to accept an expensive salwar kameez as a present on my last birthday-and had instead asked for a volume of Poe’s works-that to feel like a woman, one needs to behave like a woman. “How exactly does one feel when one feels like a woman?”I had asked her. She and my mother had exchanged glances and then she, with the air of a detective on the verge of unraveling a mystery, said, “Dress up well first. Inculcate grace and behave with a polite restrain and soon you shall know, what it feels like to be a woman.”
Thus, at the wedding I had turned up dressed up as well as I could in expensive raiment and behaved with as much as I could with what I imagined feminine grace was and waited to begin to feel like a woman. I heard the enraged voice in my head telling me that I look ridiculous. It said caustically, “How can make up and gold arouse femininity in you? What the heck is femininity anyway?”
“Femininity is grace and poise, I think-qualities which young ladies in my position should possess.” I replied.
“But grace and poise are not intrinsic qualities like honesty or intellect. They manifest only in one’s demeanour and one can fake one’s public deportment. This in turn means, one can pretend to be graceful and stuff. How can anything that be faked be an essential quality of a woman? I still don’t know what femininity is!”
“You are right, I think. But I cannot listen to you now. Let me give my mother and aunt a chance and maybe, we would discover what it is to be a woman.” I replied to the voice that loved Emilie Dickinson and Wilkie Collins and just like me, was eighteen years old. I was engrossed in conversing with the voice in my head when Tina, my sixteen year old cousin also dressed in a sari, walked up to me and said, “Why are you sitting alone, looking all confused?” Before I could say anything in reply, she said sounding suddenly gleeful and excited, “Guess what has happened? A couple of guys-they are cousins of the bride-just asked little Toby about you! I have already spoken to them; they are engineering students. They are really funny and one of them is very cute. You have to speak to them. Come with me!”
I was taken aback but I was pleased with what I heard-was I becoming ladylike, finally? Men have never asked about me; in fact, I was not sure what were they asking about me. “What did they ask Toby?”, I said to Tina.
“Oh, the normal stuff. They asked your name, your age, if you are related to the groom, and what you study. Ah, they just passed by. Look at the two guys near the window to your right!”
I looked in the direction at which Tina pointed and saw two boys, maybe in their early twenties, glancing at us. I felt perplexed and heard the voice again, “So, is attracting male attention is very important a part of being feminine?” I had to wait no longer, I felt I knew what being feminine entailed. I turned to Tina and said, “Well, you know me. Tell them that I have a tooth ache and cannot speak.” My cousin looked at me, with astonishment in her mien. “You are strange!” she said and left. “You may tell your cute guys that too if you please.” I replied as she walked away and then the realization dawned on me that to be feminine, is to bear on one’s shoulder the encumbrance of a million pretentions-I have to be coy, graceful, charming and look beautiful in a way that would make men ask about me. “Do you want to be that?”The voice asked. “No, it’s too heavy a burden. I am happier being free to look clumsy, to behave awkwardly and to brood without having to talk to men simply because they are cute. I am happier being me, unfeminine and unattractive!” I and the voice soon started discussing how we had both day-dreamed that very afternoon about living in Murshidabad during the period of political turmoil which followed Nawab Siraj ud Daula’s defeat against the East India Company at the battle of Plassey. I thought I heard some other voice-probably that of my mother saying, “Oh there is Nalini! She is staring blankly again.” But I paid no heed-I and the voice were already courtiers displeased with the inaptitude of our new Nawab, Mir Jafar!

From you, I never could look away
Just like the besotted hero in a Hindi flick
To you, I never could make myself say
Just like the heroine of old Hollywood movies-coy , meek

I thought I shall dream of you
Just as do the women in Mills & Boon novels
I thought I shall pine for you
Just as do the singers in the videos as their faces grovel

Am I in love with you?
Or with the lonely lover due
To whom thrives the culture factory
Am I in awe of your beauty or of the powers refractory ?

Of the ghost of the culture consumer that has possessed me!

Conversation

Clitoris.
Oh! Oh no! read the apology on my face, my friend
It’s so common a word, I know
Yet I cannot, at this moment, recall its meaning
Yet I cannot, at any moment, claim I know its meaning.

Do not glare at me, do not
let me see disdain flicker in your eyes
So what if I have never used it in a sentence?
I know what lummox means and that you think of me to be one

I knew what procrastination means at thirteen when
I had mentioned it as my hobby in a class-mate’s slam book
And crepuscular was what I whispered to myself
Before I began day-dreaming during school recess.

Ah! Do I see a ghost of a smile on your lips?
Just like the one I had seen on my mother’s when
One afternoon I had asked if she knew who a valetudinarian is
And she replied that she did not.

Do not smother your laugh please
For I am not upset at all, I
Who slept with the lexicon by my pillow
Who called a bully curmudgeonly once in the playground

For I never have indeed looked up the meaning of clitoris.

Defending my right to a yellow summer!

Strange are the ways of the economy, and of the people who oversee its functioning. They would not let me engage in what I would like to describe as ‘quotidian activism’! On reading of horrors that processed food items with their innumerable artificial additives can unleash on human health, I decided to not eat packaged or processed food as long as I have other alternatives.
I thought it would be my way of protesting against being fed as ‘food’ items which have nothing save industrial chemicals as their ingredients. Fruit drinks do not have a gram of fruit in them and much sought-after ‘healthy’ snacks have dangerous transfats in them! I thought I ought to protest against this infringement not only of my right to nutrition but also of my right to information, awareness and free choice. To discover that what I have been consuming as ‘healthy’ crackers because they are advertised as edibles containing fibrous grains, are actually laden with artificial flavours snd fats was scandalous for me not merely because the stuff adversely affected my health but because I have been misled into believing that iit is good for me and eventually, into buying it.
It is this culture of influence and control over my food habits by the industrial food production system and its advertising mechanism that I wanted to protest against. But I soon realized that I would inevitably have to break my resolution, change my decision, desert my own cause. I would have become an apostate and not because, I could not resist the temptation of drinking diet cola on blazing afternoons despite knowing that it has been sweetened with artificial sweetner of questionable health impact, or because I could not overlook the convenience of eating noodles which can be cooked in five minutes. I knew I would have to break my resolution because my alternatives are all exorbitantly priced. Only today I paid close to hundred bucks for as few as three mangoes-back at home, when my ma served us mangoes every evening during the summer months it had never occurred to me to attempt to discover anything about the yellow fruit except its ambrosia-like taste. That is all that I had cared for but now when I have to buy it, I discover facts other than this that it is an expensive fruit. I now get an opportunity to brood over the question why is it so important to earn good money. Not because you are not particularly bothered by your conscience that hinders you from becoming a cog in the giant corporate machinery; not because you want a sybarite life-style and certainly not because you crave for the social standing that comes with a heavy purse. You want to earn money suddenly to be able to eat mangoes.
Yes, I just need to brush up my basic economics and I should know that prices of fruits and vegetables are high because presently, the country is smarting under the blows of high food inflation. But I still cannot stop scratching my head-how come the price of mangoes has increased because of food inflation but not the price of the mango-based (so-called) drinks? The cost of potatoes are spiraling upwards but that of a packet of potato wafers still remains ten rupees as it was fifteen years ago when I first began to get addicted to its ineffable taste.
There were other amazing discoveries to make-the fruit vendor on the street sold half a kilo apples to me for eighty rupees whereas at the neighbourhood mall, the same quantity of apples costs fifty bucks. Thinking that maybe my mannerisms of an ingenuous, wide-eyed(so appealing for vendors!) dolt must have convinced the fruit vendor that perhaps she can fleece me as and when she pleases, I decided to confront her if only to prove to her that looks can be deceptive. But alas! I soon squirmed with embarrassment because she explained to me patiently in halting Hindi that she bought small quantities of particular fruits whereas retail giants who run stores in malls bought the entire produce directly from individual farmers. Could she ever compete with retail chains in terms of pricing? No, she could not, she said nodding her head and then asked me how could I expect her to offer as low prices as the malls? I was reminded of one of the lectures in TISS on why is the small vendor or neighbourhood grocery shop badly hit by liberalization.
Thus, I am struck in an excruciating situation-I either, given my paltry income, give up my protests against being forced to become a consumer of processed food items or I continue my protests but end up in the process, becoming a mall customer where fruits are still affordable because the idea of buying greens and fruits from the sweet-faced, smooth talking and slightly condescending fruit vendor in my neighbourhhood, representative of India’s ever accommodating informal sector, is a very costly one for me.

A day in Calcutta

I was relieved after the wedding. It was a lavish affair, and a noisy affair, besides being a crowded one. I enjoyed it as much as a tacit person can enjoy at a friend’s wedding-I chiefly was engaged in observing people through out the evening. But as I said, I was relieved after the wedding and my first trip to Bengal all alone, got transformed from a grueling exercise in desirable social etiquettes and mannerisms as it was at the wedding in Durgapur to a memorable sojourn when on the following day, I went to Calcutta.I had only half a day at my disposal and I was amazed that despite all my wooly-headedness, I could tell Namrata at the Howrah station where she came to receive me, that I should very like to go to a place where I could shop for Bengali books and music. She had nodded her head significantly. We traveled across the Hoogli river in a ferry and then, we walked along the avenues of Dalhousie on our way to a Chinese restaurant where she had wished to take me for lunch. On our way, admiring the colonial architecture of the buildings I commented, “I wish I could stay in one of these buildings!”
“Well, you can. All that you need to do is to find for yourself a groom hailing from any of the old bonedi families of North Calcutta; they live in such ramshackle old mansions.” Namrata said and I scowled in reply. It is very unpleasant, I told her, to hear jokes about one’s own marriage just after one has attended a friend’s wedding. We ate in a seedy restaurant where there were men drinking at 2 in the afternoon. I must have stared at them in amazement for long because Namrata reprimanded me, “Ai takash na obhabe. Tor Ahmedabad e theke ekdom shobhab kharap hoye geche.” (Don’t glare at the men who are drinking. Ahmedabad has clearly ruined your good habits/manners). I turned away self-consciously and that was my only awkward moment of the trip. Thank Heavens! We next went to Park Street and there, at the Oxford Book store, Namrata must have had to undergo a most difficult test of her patience as I quite shamelessly(am I being too harsh on myself, Namrata?) forgot her existence and squatted on the floor of the shop with piles of books. I began going through a Sunil Gangopadhyay omnibus, and also works of Sukumar Ray, Ashapurna Devi, Narayan Gangopadhyay and Shirjendu Mukhopadhyay. In a state of excited fervour, I had also picked Calvino, Mc Luhan, and Roberto Calliso. The book shop is one of the best that I have ever been to and unlike any other book store, has the books in its fiction section arranged in an alphabetic order after the names of the authors!
I could not allow myself to overlook the fact that I had only a thousand and five hunded rupees to spend on books and that I should be rather ashamed if I did not buy a book for my dear, old Baba who always buys books for me whenever he visits any place. It was a difficult task; a grave responsibility. I spend the next hour or so in a state of unbearably sweet agony, meticulously going through each of the tomes, trying to decide which of these works were absolutely essential for my existence. I figured Baba would like Shirjendu Mukhopadhyay’s wry, ironic humour as I much I do and that this could be one author whom both of us could read (unlike his favourite authors Bankim Chandra Chatterjee or Sharat Chandra Chatterjee whose classical style is beyond my power of comprehension given the fact that my Bangla vocabulary is rather limited). I also picked a volume of collected works of Narayan Gangopadhyay, a Calvino book called Adam, one afternoon, a couple of Tapan Sinha movies and a copy of the latest edition of Biblio, which I had last read a year ago in the TISS library! I finally stood up to realize that I have not spoken to Namrata, my gracious hostess in the city for over an hour now. Shit! I hurriedly looked around for her almost expecting to find her, mad at me for making her wait for so long But fortunately, she was reading something herself.(Was it not a book shop that we were in? What else could she have been doing?)
From the book store, we went to-because I hollered in excitement at the sight of the delicatessen- Flurry’s. I told her that I know of this place from the movie Parineeta, and that I also knew that it’s a very old pastry shop. In reply,she smiled indulgently. As I entered it, I had a deja-vu; I was reminded of Causeway in Bombay and its brightly-lit restaurants housed in old buildings.
Finally, when we boarded a local train at the Howrah station to Joka to go to Namrata’s house, we were both pushed and shoved so badly that I almost lost her. It began to rain soon and by the time we got off the train, it was pouring heavily. It was the most unexpectedly beautiful end of an unexpectedly pleasant day-when I had left the blazing city of Ahmedabad a day back, I had not hoped to get drenched in a downpour! Namrata was now looking for a cycle rickshaw to take us home….

Fiction

As I watched her in the dimly-lit room, I felt awe mixed with envy rise in my heart. While I spend my quotidian life as a mediocre nondescript one in the midst of people I don’t care about, doing things that I don’t find remotely soul-stirring, here was a woman in front of me who did the best things in the world, every weekend and not for a living! I was in a club- or in a room that had a faint ambience or appearance of a club-and a few yards away from me, there stood a woman singing. She had a mellifluous voice, entrancing. She was presently crooning ‘Golden Brown’; nay, she did not have the British accent but still she sang well and played the guitar with as much feeling as flair. Dressed in a flowing maroon skirt and a black blouse with a brown bandana tied around her sleek, short hair, she looked how I would want to look myself. She smiled faintly to herself as she, in her sonorous voice, began to sing ‘O Pardesi’ from the movie Dev D. I ruefully recalled how I have to smile everyday too, at people I do not wish even scowl at. Perfunctory smiles, fake laughter, polite small talks-these have become such a major part of life when I wanted to be like the guitar-strumming, bandana-wearing stranger in front me who could smile to herself! She now began to play ‘Sweet Dream’ as she gazed at I believe no one in particular, dreamily. Could it be possible that she has been bewitched by her own voice? Nay, it was the phantasm-like ambience that had moved her as it enchanted me. She was singing the penultimate line ‘For announcing the end of my sweet-dream…’and swaying rhythmically when suddenly a loud, screeching, harsh noise intruded us.
It was the calling bell! Shucks! I quickly took off the goggles and the bandana. I put aside the guitar and hastily took off the ridiculously long skirt to put on the first pair of pajamas I could lay my hands on in the cupboard and ran to open the door. Gosh! Who could come at 9 on a Sunday evening? I opened the door to find a uniformed guard standing. “There will be no water supply tomorrow after 12 noon. The water tanks will be cleaned”, he said tersely and rang the bell of the neighbouring flat while I said a vague ‘thank you for informing’ and shut the door. I went back to my room;the stuff-sun glasses, the bandana, the skirt-that I had hurriedly abandoned, were scattered on the bed and the guitar was on the stool next to the mirror. I looked at them once and decided to cook for tomorrow, tonight itself as there would be no water to boil vegetables in the next day, or to wash dishes!

The List

That my mind is a misty farrago, I never doubted
But neither did I know that there could be order in it
Until I made the list titled-
‘Have no expectations but only aspirations’!

To wake up at dawn to perform Kapotasana
By the end of this month.
To wake up in the depths of Critical Theory
By the end of this year

To travel to Dharmasala alone
Before the end of this summer
To travel to dreams of rationality
Before the end of this life-time

That I had humble aspirations I never doubted
But neither did I know that they could be so arduous.

Ill-effects of dehydration

It has become very common of late: to get bored easily. There is nothing worthwhile about watching the endless cavalcade of automobiles that honk and whiz past the streets outside; there is nothing worthwhile either about reading the countless lines in the tomes that lay on my bed. Habermas made sense because I began with him early in the morning but as the hours passed, my grasp over the text became increasingly tenuous; I could still vaguely comprehend Foucault’s authorship function and epistemes but Derrida’s Deconstruction made no sense at all. It was 2 in the afternoon and I was ashamed of my blunted power of comprehension but actually, I was too exhausted to be so. I wondered if I had failed to make sense of Derrida because the singeing heat outside has rendered my brain a mass of melting wax-utterly useless and a sordid sight.(It is a small mercy that no one can fortunately see it!) Or was I actually too much of a nincompoop to be able to understand Deconstruction? The fan overhead spun clumsily, and I felt a benumbing pain at the back of my head. Maybe, I did not sweat sufficiently because of which I was feeling so uncomfortable. I picked up Bolano’s Nazi Literature of the Americas presently but after reading in it for half an hour about plagiarizing poetasters, hooligan wits and psychopathic science fiction writers, I shut the book and put it away, in horror. Do people write for mere fame or worse, to satiate their tendencies of self aggranisement? Was I likely to become like these writers of Bolano’s imagination ever? Maybe I would if I tried writing, without first trying to understand Derrida or Levi Strauss.
I felt nervous and decided to eat, though I was not feeling hungry remotely. I began eating a paratha but with every bite of it, I felt nauseous. Was there nothing to allay my discomfiture, this engulfing sense of wastefulness? I wished I could sleep but it was too hot to fall asleep. I began watching Charulata and the scene of a rising storm early in movie when Charu first meets Amal, acutely made me conscious of the dry, hot afternoon hour. It was 4 o’ clock and the sun still scorched the surroundings mercilessly. I suddenly wished I could cry myself to sleep and dream of rains at home! But I knew I could not and therefore, continued to watch the classic. Mabhabi-the actress who played Charu in the film-reminded me of Audrey Hepburn while the actor who played her husband-I donot know his name-with his calm deportment, his impeccable English accent and his fervour for reforms, reminded me of my chotomesho. I again found myself yearning to be at home, something that could not be fulfilled and hence, I attempted to focus on the architecture of the house in which Charu lived and its furniture. How beautiful, I thought, were the four-poster beds, the bureaus, the grandfather clocks and the high ceilings and the broad pillars that were to be found in the houses of this land in the 19th century. I now simultaneously wished that I was born in that era and that I could live in a house like that in 2011, even if it was derelict state…Towards the end of the movie, Charu and her husband visit some sea-shore and the sight of the waves suddenly made me realize that I had drank very little water this afternoon. I drank an entire bottle of water in a few gulps and sensed a moist coolness spreading down my throat towards the abdomen. I felt less nauseous and even yawned once! Maybe, I could try sleeping now and who knows, maybe I will dream of myself sitting at my desk by the window in my room back at home and watching a torrential downpour…Ah!

Because you went away to Santiago...

You will now be a reminiscence
Dazzling in beauty
No different from how you were when
you were my day-dream!
Songs will remind me of you
So would passages of esoteric novels
In solitude and in silence,
In musings and in reveries,
And in corridors you would never walk again
Alone, I will encounter you.

Produced on an unproductive Sunday

I never cease to think of this person
Or to care for her
To listen to her stories
And to allay her fears!

To attempt to make sense of her dreams
And to please her fancies
To tolerate her caprices even
Why? Just because she is called I?

Who is-am-I anyway?
Neither Sarah Woodruff nor Anne of Green gable
Just a common consumer is she
Of accolades, apples and electricity, besides maudlin songs.

No different or better than a million others
Then why can I not cease to care for her?
Might it be because I know that
for a quarter of a century now, she has been dreaming?

Of a history of the grand theories in her head
Foolish loafer you may call her, but I will call her a lotus eater
Of ancient tales told in the lost cities in her head
Crazy wench she may seem to you but to me a raconteur.

I cannot not like her, fragile
No less than her gossamer-spun dreams
Besides, she tries to figure why she exists
In her building, a city, a civilisation!

And so do I.

Poetry at the beach...

It is unbelievable that a year has now passed since the trip.
We had submitted the last of our assignments and had a month’s time before we received our degrees at the convocation. I had therefore nothing to do but even then, I was hesitant to agree when Swathi suggested that I should go to Goa with her and Sita and their friends.
I had never been on a holiday without my parents, I had woefully small sum of money in my bank account and I was rather ashamed of asking Ma to send me more money, I did not think too highly of Goa as a holiday destination, crowded and noisy as it would be-I had myriad of reasons for being unwilling to go to Goa. Moreover, there was one reason that I was scared of admitting even myself but which I knew was the main cause of my reluctance-for four long days, I had to be with people and talk to them! I must have bitten my nails for several nights, while wondering if I could tell Swathi and Sita that I did not wish to go with them, because I was unsure if I would want to be with them on all four days…
I eventually did go to Goa last spring. We had stayed at the Baga beach and traveled throughout north Goa in motor bikes; I have vivid memories of the hot mornings when we mostly went sightseeing to forts and churches and of cool, breezy nights when we sat in the beach till mid-night at least. I would invariably be uncomfortable for a while, each night at the beach because I could join my friends neither in drinking nor in their desultory conversations. But soon, I would cease to be self-conscious as with every passing hour, despite the presence of rowdy crowds in the beach, the sea would become increasing beautiful and mysterious. I would watch the silver slivers of the moon on crest of the waves and the distant trees and hillocks, silhouetted against the inky blue curtain of the night sky. In those moments, I intensely yearned that I had the talent for composing verses because I could have captured my impressions of those nights, along with all the ardour, exhilaration and wonder that I felt. Years later, I only had to read them and they would have, as powerful as incantations since they would have been, transported me back to the nights at the Baga beach. Convinced that no photograph could ever be half as effective, I did attempt to create unfading memories for myself at the beach by trying to write poetry but every time, I would give up mid-way, as none of the lines I wrote ever sounded half as beautiful as I felt I and the beach were, then.
A year has passed since then. Except for Sita and Swathi, I have not met or spoken to any of the other people who went on that trip. I have not ridden a bike either-it was in Goa that I last rode pillion behind Sita. I have not been to a flea market again. And, I have never felt so beautiful again.

Dhyana at the Soiree

At the beginning, I was restless.
I wondered if it made any sense for me to be there when where I really wanted to be was the library, as I had lots to read. But it was a recital by the maestro who invented the Mohan Veena-Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and I was curious to listen to him play. So, at 8 o'clock in the night yesterday, I was to be found in a second row seat at the Ravi J.Mathai Auditorium in IIMA.
Initially, once concert began, I simply watched the changing expressions on the musician's visage and his nimble fingers that gracefully played the Veena. I even turned back to look at the audience in the auditorium. But I was still too distracted to appreciate the music, rich and mellifluous though I could feel it was. Was I incapable of appreciating Indian classical music, I wondered but barely for a moment. After all, I had so immensely enjoyed at the concerts of Pandit Jasraj and Pandit Ajoy Chakravarty and I have few memories as stupendously beautiful as the one of the stormy, April night last year when I had sat alone in the balcony of our first floor flat until dawn, listening to a singleKhayal based on the raaga Megha Malhar sung by Sawai Gandharva, while it rained incessantly.
I presently realised that I have a flaw-I am a slave of words, written and spoken. I am incapable of appreciating any form of art or communication that did not involve usage of words and which my mind could not analyse rationally.
It was a stunning discovery, and disconcerting. All around me, people had their gazes fixed on the stage in front of them while a few-perhaps, the most ardent connoisseurs-repeatedly and vigourously nodded their heads, right and left. I could not do either.
I shut my eyes and listened; gradually I began to grasp the cadence of the music that was being played. Concomitantly, images kept fleeting before my shut eyes-the interior of a dark cave that had at a great distance, a very tiny opening through which entered a faint beam of day-light, the silhouette of a beak-nosed man on a dimly lambent window pane.
After a time, the images ceased to appear and all that I was aware of now was the music-the rhythmic flow of sound waves that reached the crescendo once in a while, and constantly weaved intricate, evanescent patterns in the darkness that enveloped me.
When the recital finally ended, I realised so only when the audience began to clap and applaud. I opened my eyes and found myself seated in Sukhasana; my hands were on my thighs in the lotus mudra and my mind was calm. I realised that for the past half an hour or so, not a single thought had crossed my mind and there was not a single human face that I had looked at. There had been nothing between the music and my auditory senses. During that period, I could have been anyone-a Maori woman, an eighteenth century English squire and even a dog or a pigeon!
I had ceased then to exist, as myself. During the recital , thus, I had my first real session of Dhyana(meditation). Thank you, Panditji.