FRIEND

It was 2007, in the first year of my college, I met him. He was a year senior, and was always in the midst of things (mainly football) - the one you could call the popular kind, but I remember him watching me on that day, the very first day as if he was waiting for me.

My first year, when I arrived in the city, I was a bit lost- I was told by everyone back in my little country home- not to trust anyone in the city, especially the ones who spoke good English. So I was rather a reticent kid of eighteen who didn’t speak much and only observed- ‘I had that innocent look’ as one girlfriend once pointed out. I don’t know what it was but after a month or so when I used to sit in the portico with my classmates, he once came over and started talking with me- I kept in mind what my folks back home said- ‘no politics’ because that's what seniors did and so I was a bit disappointed when he started asking me- if I was into any sports. Soon he introduced me to his bunch of footballer friends and I really started enjoying my college life. He always maintained a certain distance with people, even with his footballer buddies and that was really evident. It was through him that I met a lot of girls too and being confused initially - I was sure that he wasn’t sleeping with anybody- he was distant and never cared and the girls liked that, well most of them- the mysterious guy and all that shit. Naturally they confided in me and I was falling in and out of love every other day- but I was still shy to make any move on anyone. Among them I really liked one of the girls, who would later become someone else's girlfriend but that's another story.

He introduced me to Jack Kerouac, Bengali folklore, the untold history of Mughals and what not, and he would sometimes stay back at my PG and we would listen to The Doors and everything would be fine. I remember how great a footballer he was and through all my time I had seen him play, he was never tackled by any of the opponents- he was that good, and I also felt that he underplayed himself- as if he knew how good he was so he didn’t want to ruin the competition, he didn't want the others resign to their fate.

He continued his post-graduation and while doing that I invited him over to my country home up in the North of Bengal- Silmora. He had never invited me to his place in all those years of living in the city and I always figured it had something to do with domestic strife at his place, but then he never talked much about himself and I really didn’t know who he had at his home. He always had something interesting to say without backing it up with evidence or narrating the source- and that's what I think was the most peculiar of his characters and the most unnerving one, it got me worked up. I will get there. You will see what I mean.

My college time girlfriend had a problem with him- she once accused me of having sexual relations with him- all in good humor.

When I invited him over to North Bengal, he gave me a look that was mixed both in emotions and a sort of existential nothingness- somewhere in between- which bothered me a lot, I don't know why, like he was hoping this day would come. To be honest in college I was the only person he spent time with, he would tell me all these strange stories about old Bengal and it’s dacoits and the murders of family members because of greed- he seemed to know so much. He told me a lot about Silmora- where I came from (because obviously I had told him everything about me) and I asked him where he had read all of that and he named some obscure Bengali book that I could never find.

I don't remember much from his visit though, because nothing happened, he became much more withdrawn, he would wake up early in the morning and disappear in the village and you could find him with a book on the other side of the jheel that was by our house. My parents liked him because of his habit of waking up early in the morning and he was much more verbose than usual with them, as if he hypnotized them in liking him. 

It was one of these days while returning to our home, I looked at the house from the other side of the jheel, it was almost sundown and Silmora is the most beautiful at sundown when the silhouettes are long. He suddenly looked at me and told me that- 'There's a man trapped under your house, he needs to be free.' I didn't say anything because it was pointless and I would only be answered back with silence. I wondered if he had read it in some book- or if he was imagining up a story. Or may be both.   

After I left college I lost in touch with him, and I heard he dropped out and disappeared somewhere. I haven't thought about him much since then and it was a bit of a shock for me because he never left any trace- to be honest he was the one who ditched me, and I was always egoistic enough not to ask around about him- if I didn’t knew, nobody knew, not even the fucking authorities. So many years in the city and I didn’t even know where he lived. It’s funny how much a man could not tell you if he doesn’t want to tell you.

Five years have gone by since then and my parents have shifted to the city, our old country home remains locked in a mist of weed and country snakes, and a few days ago I visited it to just to do the yearly maintenance and cleaning. It was then, I don't know why I suddenly remembered what he had said to me years ago, about a man buried beneath our house. In that empty house it was an eerie thought. I couldn't sleep that night and I had a "le cauchemar" which is a classy nightmare and so I woke up all alone in the night  and thought about him and our time in college. I felt the dark moonllit plains of Silmora folding up on me and it was then I realized how I had actually once wanted to touch him but couldn't.

It was long ago and we were in my PG and he had probably read me out a Walt Whitman poem and I just wanted to touch his hand when he looked away, but I had only felt air - cold air.       

Hum Apke Hain Kaun?

The brouhaha surrounding Bajrangi Bhaijaan made me watch snippets from an old classic (probably the first Salman Khan movie I watched and that too in a theater) - Hum Aapke Hain Kaun.
I remember watching it in a hall called 'Mitra'- I guess with my entire family and being amused by the flashy lights that jarred my little eyes every time a song sequence happened.
I will always remember the lines 'Didi Tera Devar Diwana' without understanding what it means as of now. Madhuri Dixit who sat on a Billiards Table romancing Salman Khan (Bhaijaan) in one song sequence hardly impressed me back then- it was 20 years ago and I was too bloody young to understand why MF Hussain would make her his muse. Although, no offence to artist Bhaijaan I fondly remember the fluffy white thing that danced with Madhuri and umpired in a cricket match, yes a little white spitz, just like our very own kuttush.
And in a split moment of curiosity I did a Google search, 'what happened to the dog in Hum Aapke Hain Kaun'? And really you must love the internet.

.....
In Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (1994), the role of "Tuffy" was played by Redo, a 6-year-old Indian Spitz belonging to the Assistant Director Madhukar Sawle. The Spitz had a vital role in the movie. Actress Madhuri Dixit later adopted the dog, which died in 2000 at age twelve....

Now that I am all grown up, I do love Madhuri Dixit. I kinda have this thing for women who love dogs.

Don't do drugs?

Last night/this morning I read about Jeet Thayil and his heroin addiction. I kept listening to the jazz of Thayil/Sridhar through the night. Had horrible dreams on the account of sleeping through the day, but kept on sleeping because I loved those scarring mini movies inside my head. It was 2.30 in the afternoon and I had to wake up coz the dreams were getting intolerable. As I sat on the sofa reading the headlines and promising never to torture my mind like that again, ma comes over and smiles and says - "Ami shob bujhi," (I understand everything) and so I had to explain her for the next few minutes how I am not into drugs and will never do drugs.

Happy Friendship Day

Looking back at my schooldays I must wonder why I didn't connect with most people around me- is it because I did not have a slam book or watched enough Bollywood? I never asked my parents to buy me a slam book, the economics were different back in those days- plus i wasn't much of the asking kind- it appeared a sort of luxury to the child in me and I guess it has done me wonders in finding friends for life.

I am glad I never watched WWE/WWF back in school, and instead read books. Most cool kids graduated into watching the EPL/IPL the pop- trend of our generation, and like a fool I still remain loyal to my books- friends for life? Perhaps.

To all the beautiful and real people in my life- Happy Friendship Day. 

Because the world is round it turns me on

 The Beatles once said,

‘Because the world is round
It turns me on. ‘

I wonder if life is strewn with
callus orange lotus that soothe
God’s eye, I don’t care about gods plan
-orange fucking lotus turns me on. 

A butterfly swivelling through mid-air,
Whose colours are a mystery, who suckles
my nectar, who suckles on and on
- butterflies, they turn me on.

I am made of water, I do not flow, I am still
water, yet I am not ice and I am not snow,
I am pure- find me in your
protoplasm, hang me dry and I will still breath life-
More life than your police state with population charts-
- water and words, they turn me on.

Busker was a big boy and he knew a butterfly,
who ate from his lotus garden-orange fucking lotus:
by the side of a great lake- whose scenery exaggerated
in the moonlight and who wouldn’t come near that living
beauty? Come, oh strangers with cameras! Water can wash
words but it exaggerates beauty, and who is beautiful-
the flower, the water or the butterfly?

Beauty turns me on. One day Busker
woke up and he had lost his voice: the sun
was banned, and with it everything died,
the soul died he said- there was no flower,
no water and no butterfly. And to those who
banned the sun he asked them- he asked
 time and again
‘Does death turn you on?’

He must have heard nothing, for the
dead do not speak to the living in their
language and perhaps there is no poem
without loss. 

Happy

I am sad in the sunlight
I am sad in the rain 
I am sad and insignificant 
Like a sand grain.

And sometimes, sometimes 
When I invade your mind, 
You are happy, happy, 
Happy and blind. 

Synedoche life

I have often wondered about all the stories that I have observed in the virtual world- the stories observed through the casual observation of one's news feed. The story of the budding writer, the tagging poet, the witty one line king, the selfie queen, the hash tag princess, the politically snobbish economist, the dreamy literature girl, a salman loving body builder, lonely football fanatics, make up artists , happy go luckies, intellectuals, post post modern playwrights, undergraduate day politicians, eight time activists, reborn intellectuals, funny lads, goddamn photographers, just people, people, etc. etc. a diverse range of people everyone vocal in their own right -expressing, reexpressing arguing whose world this is, who belongs here, who stabs, and prints and generates wonder and attention, who wins, who does not, who makes more friends in a chair, without moving, who engages who reengages, who represents culture, who reinvents the status quo, who is a feminist who is not- who- me- you- I-
All the paraphernalia of information and wisdom, emotions, morality, that I have casually obeserved hardly touches me at all- these days I forget casually what words mean, I always do; what I see here always gets washed in another flurry of reinvented identities and representatons.

I think I know now, our virtual lives can never be a synedoche of our lives, our virtual lives can just be a dishonest memoir of our true lives, our true lives will always hide in the silent honesty of nights and the secrecy of our dreams.