Every silence is made up of a network of minuscule sounds that envelops
it. And every solitude, is made up of fragmented togetherness that
surrounds you. It is night. Late in the night. The white and blue radio
cabs are yet to take over the city. Hues of yellow-blue taxis
predominate the eastern Bypass roads. The one I am sitting in, is
playing Md.Rafi singing a cheerful Shammi Kapoor number on the radio.
The lonesome honks of the few aged taxis and rusted buses, behind,
disturbed my thoughts. The traffic sergeant at the Science city crossing
once helped me find the direction to some exam center during my college
days, few years back. A fleeting glimpse of the sergeant did not help
me decipher if it was the same man. The taxi headlights caressed those
dimmed streets of my city, I once crossed daily. Is it nostalgia that
overruns me everytime I come back to this place? Or is it what you call
ecstasy... the eternal pleasure that I get sinking into the depth of
this city's enormous couch? Or is ecstasy a long forgotten song
sung by mother when young? Is it meeting a long lost high school friend,
amazed at the sight of her vermillion between the parting of her hair,
suddenly realizing we have grown up? Or is it memories of occupying the
first row in the classroom, and sneezing repeatedly every time the Hindi
teacher banged on the table with her duster? From Tagore's rejection of
Knighthood, to Ganguly's bare-chested jersey-waving victory, to
irreplacable and untimely loss of film maker Rituparno Ghosh... all that
we live with is memories.
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My mind fleets to the lazy afternoon in the now-shuttered College
Street, where once I bargained on tons of second hand grad-school books,
that I leafed through only a couple of weeks before the exam. Rest of
the year was kept for the infamous "adda" over "cha and toast". Another, brake jerked me to consciousness. The taxi drove past the lane I was
visiting about 7 years back, twice a week, while in school for English
tuition. She was in her late 60s. One post on a social networking forum,
about 3 months ago, read that she was no more. Cancer devoured her.
Death is so strange; stranger than life. One moment you are alive. The
next moment you' re gone.
Every shut sweet shop, and every dark
lane I crossed reminded me of those rare visits to "mamabari" in South
Kolkata. Getting ready to go out with mother was associated with her
soft silk sarees, the smell of old naphthalene when she pulled them out
from the steel wardrobe, piles of old photo albums, some of the oldest
ones being ingested by arthropods..... layered frocks for children that
was in style, and ofcourse, the joyous tram ride. My mind was flooded
with childhood memories, associated with this city, the ancient aroma
locked in those almirahs and the tiny world that every child lives in,
called, Mother.
While my eyes were about to shut after the day's
hectic schedule, light from a heading car blinded me, followed by
screeching brakes. The awfully narrow alley leading to my home it was,
and neither vehicle had way to pass. While the drivers screamed at each
other, a man, who resembled a friend of mine came out of the cab to
make way. Yes, I knew him. Alokesh Mitra, the geekiest of my batch in
school, it was. He was heard to be a medico, practicing in Pune, now. As
I yelled out waving at him, he smiled and came close. And after
exchanging few anecdotes from our common past, he took off his black
cap, that surprised me with his shaved head. "My father passed away.. I
am returning from the crematorium, performing his last rites...". It was
time to depart. He took out a pack of Gold Flakes from his pocket, lit
one and aired it, as the smouldering smokes of agony slowly disappeared
into the air.
