It had been a long long time since we left the college campus for someplace other than home.
And so one fine day, four of us ( from extreme left - Ankita, Jana, Jigisha ; and me ) decided to set out for the ancient cemetery at Park Street.
Stepping outside the campus under the blazing summer sun, catching a metro to Park Street, and roaming the near-serpentine streets in twists and turns, (with Jana's occassional sugarcoated warnings of "Bhai, prochur hnaat'tey hobe kintu." ) with nothing to feed on but some long-forgotten fragments of campus-gossips, we finally reached our destination, dripping with sweat and heads as hot as a well-heated frying-pan.
Oh, I almost forgot. We stopped midway to enter an overpriced Fastrack store.
Jigisha had managed to secure a small fortune from her mother that day & seemed hell-bent on buying a semi-gigantic pair of brown-coloured sunglasses.
She put it on. The glasses gave her an interesting, serious godmother-type look.
However, coming back to the quaint dwelling of the numerous bodiless souls cenotaphed here and there.
We passed giant stone graves one after another, dusty and mournful, sometimes adorned by sheafs of yellowed leaves carelessly strewn over their cracked bodies.
The entire place had an air of melancholy calmness, punctuated by the coos and caws of birds that swept in an archlike fashion under the dense canopy of trees.
"Achchha, ekhane bhoot-toot nei bodhoy, na?" I asked, after the four of us had disrespectfully slumped down on a particularly grimy, cemented grave having tapering pillars on either side. The grave was built on an unkempt, shady nook of the cemetery, and provided some comfort from the blazing sunlight.
" Kejane! ", replied Jana, with a scowl. Clearly, he had lost all enthusiasm about the trip.
Meanwhile Ankita had busied herself with a bar of chocolate, nibbling at it now and then, while Jigisha kept on blushing for no reason, completely lost, gazing at her mobile-screen.
When caught in the act by a questioning look given by me and Jana ( Ankita seemed to be interested in her own phone right then ), Jigisha cleared her throat, and said in an unimportant tone : " Kharagpur. "
Okay.
Apparently, all of us were jobless right then. We needed to do something.
I mean, hungry and exhausted though we all were, we couldn't just sit upon the grave for hours doing nothing apart from debating about exactly how old this particular grave was. It may piss off the poor spirit of the sahib, if he happened to be lurking nearby his grave somewhere.
So we got up, still very much jobless ; and decided to go look at the names engraved on the marble slabs of the obelisks and see how many names each of us were familiar with.
As the three friends, brushing dust off their bags and jeans, left the reclining spot, and followed one another in a single-file under the torturing afternoon sun in search of the obelisks, I decided to capture this moment as a memento of my very first visit to this uncannily tranquil graveyard.
The picture, as you can see, tells you that I'm yet to learn the technicalities of my camera fully.
Nevertheless, it manages to speak to me, through its trembling daubs of colour & the hazy contours, about one particularly sultry summer afternoon, depicting the Tale of Three Friends. ( Teen Yaari Kotha )
Been a really long time until I could post something in my blog.
(Anybody who happens to follow my blog and likes my posts, my humble apologies to you.)
I've kinda lost track as to what actually kept me away from posting.
Mostly college-stuff actually, including working my ass off for clearing my first semester. Another reason was an old friend who visited Calcutta recently from Ahmedabad ; had to find time for her too.
This picture bears memories of her visit, and some time spent in a potter's colony where we visited together.
The visit, initially intended to capture moments of people whose lives have developed around artistry, and are solely dependent on a potter's wheel, soon changed its inclination.
I steered it, actually, though it was unconsciously done.
Both of us went in different directions, with an occassional call or a text keeping us updated about each-other's whereabouts in that geometric maze.
I, after trying in vain to artfully capture a series of toobris, (hollow clay cups stuffed to their mouth with a kind of flammable powder, which are used extensively as a firecracker) kept for drying in the sun, wandered into an alleyway.
Flanked by gigantic (and I am sure haunted) quaint houses, typically representing their North Calcuttan designs, the alleys themselves served as eye-soothers. (Yes, I am this romantic.)
It was quite late in the afternoon.
I sat on the front stairs outside a house opposite such an alleyway, for quite some time, minutely observing a crow that was swinging on a low telephone wire and absent-mindedly listening to a conversation between two women, apparently housewives, talking to one another across the distance of their separate balconies.
After a while though, I thought it wise to get up from the stairs and 'cultivate' those alleys instead, fearing that I might get shooed away by one of those women who had a good chance of spotting a stranger in their neighbourhood, sitting and doing nothing, apparently.
It was then that I texted my friend to come and meet me there, reminding her of an old idea of mine about doing her photoshoot in different locations of Calcutta.
She duly came, hopping with excitement.
By then, the visit has shifted course entirely ; the whole potters' colony remaining in oblivion.
The photoshoot, ideas of which I had even scribbled as a draft somewhere in an all-purpose diary, would probably never have started if I had not wandered carelessly into those musty alleys.
Needless to say, not much could be achieved about the desired photoshoot as neither of us were prepared. But come as it may, memory of the alleys still kindles a light of affection whenever these photos glimps past my cluttered head.
Also reminding me of a simple fact : mystery and memory knits around the unlikeliest of places.Nothing beats the charm of suddenly excavating places, and finding, it too like humans, crave some company every now and then.
My mother.
Currently, I am not being able to click any picture as the old batteries stopped working ages ago and I still haven't bought new ones.
All the pictures I have posted in my blog till now are pretty old, besides being my personal favourites.
I was hunting for a such a favourite today, as I was re-scanning my folders.
And, I came across this photo which was taken during my late schoolgirl-days.
It seems strange (plus really nice at times) that even now, while glimpsing through old photographs, I can perfectly recall its environment without any effort.
They come to me in fragments, and I try stitching them up together to make a patched up memory, frozen in time.
This photograph, for instance, was taken one afternoon, after I returned from school, hungry and tired.
I went looking for my mother, to let her know that I have returned home.
As I reached the balcony where I knew my mother should be, I met with a scene.
An unusual one.
Maa, her face turned slightly away from the door, sat on the rickety wooden chair (that has been the sole piece of furniture adorning our veranda for as long as I can remember). She was all by herself, a rarity in her day-to-day life which is usually spent in taking care of the woes and worries of all but herself.
Also, it was a rare moment, when she looked beautiful.
Her face held an undecipherable expression, yet one so strong that you cannot look away easily.
The palm of her left hand was curled lightly round her cell phone, which rested on her lap. An occasional dry gust of breeze washed over her, rustling the free end of her saree and barely caressing the greying hair at her temples which she oiled so often. Her unblinking eyes gazed outside, holding a steady expression.
I was close enough to get my presence registered, to disrupt her thoughts, to bring her back to her accustomed reality.
Somehow, that didn't seem fair.
Hence I decided to stop for a while in-front of that scene, and drink it in slowly.
She looked surreal to me, almost detached, in a way I never thought could exist between two close people. It was as if I am seeing her portrayed as an entirely different woman, the only common thing being the face, which resembled my mother's.
Maa, I remember, acknowledged my presence only after the soft clicking noise of the camera's shutter broke the palpable silence around us.
She immediately attempted to leave in order to get my meal prepared, but I told her not to hurry, and sit down instead.
Curiously, my mother gave her consent through silence.
We stayed there together, watching the afternoon transform to dusk; Silence, interjected by the homebound calls of the birds, being our only companion.
We hardly talked, and I understood that the value of silence is probably best known by those who spend a major part of their lives amidst the din and bustle of their shelter, catering to the innumerable needs and wants of those surrounding them, and sparing the least time for themselves.
For them, silence is indeed a valuable possession, because it never crosses their lives easily.
Successful in earning it, they are wise enough not to share it with anybody, preserving it till the last drop for nourishing themselves.
:)
From an individual's perspective, I believe women should have a greater share of such afternoons, a larger share of time which they could devote entirely to themselves.
A time, when she is exclusively of her own; when she doesn't have to swing alternatively between the identities of being a wife, a mother, a daughter, or a sister.
A time when her identity is only that of a woman.
Because understanding one's primary identity and remaining true to that, matters.
Speaks of laziness, doesn't it, afternoons?
A wonderful time of the day, I tell you.
Provides you a host of choices to choose from to spend that time ; you can either settle for a siesta, or curl up with a good book, or, if you have an adventurous streak, sneak inside the silent kitchen for something lip-smacking which you probably can't lay your hands on under the watchful eyes of your mother or grandma.
Afternoons also allow you to flip through the pages of the day's newspaper and usually halt at the comic-strip or sudoku section most of the time ; to run up that steep staircase, unlatch a rusty, creaking door, and burst into the terrace, which has grown less familiar to you in the years of 'growing up', and most importantly, to reflect on the thoughts that have been bothering you for sometime, and is the reason for the dark circles under your eyes.
My father once told me, we are in dire need of time to really understand what we want from life. Time is too short, and we take away far too much of it to squander than spend properly.
To find answers to the big questions in our life, we need to spend considerable amount of time with ourselves, to think and reflect upon our thoughts and way of seeing things.
Though some would say that thinking isn't of any worth if you refuse to act the way you think, I would say go ahead. Think first. It takes a lot of courage to think in the correct lines. Because it can be scary sometimes you know; coming out of your comfort zone, stepping into reality, and deciding if it's time to reconstruct your views or adhere to the original ones.
Once you have learnt how to think, you will know how to act.
So, to all those who took the trouble to read through, start reflecting.
And I assure you that afternoons will be a great time to do so.
And for all those who are too busy to reflect, don't worry.
The way reality is gaining ground, it will force you to find an afternoon exclusively for your thoughts very soon.
:)
Taken from a car; stopping briefly at a traffic signal.
The entire picture went out of focus, due to the low light conditions of a sweltering evening.
Looked more like a painting to me, only blurry, as if the proportions of water and paint have been improperly measured.
The city has so many secrets, so many truths in her bosom, camouflaged by the glow of its brighter and warmer facets.
Sometimes, in moments of utter I-don't-know-what, I wish to unfold these truths one by one, as if carefully unwrapping a mysterious package, trying to bring out a little facet of the place, where my roots lie.
Evenings and afternoons have a queer way of making people nostalgic , even if that nostalgia reminds them of the weirdest thoughts.
One such superbly nostalgic evening, at my aunt's place, I was sitting by the window. My head was feeling like frozen yogurt (it was winter) and my eyes dizzy with sleep.
The after-effects of a prolonged nap during the afternoon, nothing else.
I was too overpowered by dizziness to feel nostalgic right then.
However, I freezed some consecutive moments of that evening, illuminated by neon lights of the lamp-post and strings of small, multi-coloured light bulbs.
And now illuminated by memories as well.
:)
The river we address as mother.
Ganga. And a handful of golden confetti of the rising sun on her surface.
And a fisherman, getting down to his day's task.
Together, they influence one another.
Individually, each has its own flow to control.
