I'm going North: Day1

White, Grey and Damp; the day started. It is an usual foggy wintery morning in Agartala with the unsual Rain. Yes, today the clouds showered for 15 minutes clearing off the dense fog. Yet it stayed cliudy and damp. The flight reached and left Agartala in time. And another usual thing,  security check at Agartala airport didn't ask me to take out all the stuffs from bags for further check. Christopher McCandless' story told by Jon Krakauer saved me from the boredom. I sat reading and observing the strangers. Two punjabis in blue and black turban sat opposite to me discussing how big an aircraft is, one said to another pointing at a security personelle in turban, "Papaji aap bhi sardar ji ke saath khara ho jaeye... Saradin plane dekhenge!" On board 6E762, a gentleman was dozing next to me in a costly suit and a Rolex on wrist. On the other side, sat a man from Uttarpradesh who asked the flight attendent to speak in Hindi as she gave him directions how to open the emergency exit.
I reached Kolkata to get  a sense of freedom as my cellphone said, 'No Service'. I got connected again to the celluar network with a call from Ma. Sqeezed myself into the seat of AC39 and headed towards Baguihati.
Still with no Kolkata vibes. Baguihati looks like an oversized and overcrowded Agartala. The afternoon is boring. Slept for 2hours at Prasenjit Kaku's.
It is 9:30pm and I get the Kolkata Vibes. I am having a night drive across the city with my host family. Kolkata has a wide variety. I can see people on their nightly strolls, walking to local market squares, to tea stalls for daily ritual of Adda. At some localities there was barely anyone on the streets. To the North of the city, I saw many vagabonds going to sleep under the benches, bridges and overpasses probably with less or no food. And kilometers away we entered a Pizza Hut outlet to get an untimely pizza at 10:05pm. Ma and Me celebrated the Marriage Anniversary of Chandana pishi and Debu Kaku. Yes, its strange that I call Kaku because I feel calling Pisho makes it feel distant with a cake that we bought from Mio Amore(Monginis confectioneries changed to this)  at 10:30pm. Its an unbelievable event to get a cake shop open at 10:30pm. It's 11:37pm and we reached the apartment of the host family.

Good Times

                      It was low tide. The ferry was tethered to the Ghats. Passengers waited. For the clock passed another hour and half the river began to swell. The passengers boarded the ferry, pulling behind them their luggage, cattle and children. It was an absolute chaos. Yet the quarter master leaded everything and every person overboard. The diesel engine roared, gradually changed into a slowly thump-thump-thump pumping the rowing paddles. The ferry floated across the huge river. A river so wide that hardly the other bank was visible. There were sandy-silt deltas scattered across the river bed. The captain already told how risky it was to navigate through these tropical icebergs. I stood by the guard-rails basking in the early summer sun. At that point the sun was more comforting than the chaos on the roofed deck. The golden sunlight filtered through the polariser sunglass seemed to be bluish. I lit up a Marlborough. It smoothened my nerves from the irritation of the chaos. Sunderban appeared to be calmer with each drags. Thud! My peace ended soon. The quarter master shouted, “Sshala Bhata eey notun chor banailo!” ‘Bastard Ebb made a new delta!’ Moments later I deciphered. He cursed the low tide for giving birth to a new delta. Our hull got stuck in an underwater delta. The crew made desperate attempts but failed. The passengers grew restless. Women prayed and men cursed the captain. The kids cried and the goats remained same dumb. I was to catch a train from Howrah later at evening. But was now helplessly stuck in the world’s largest river-delta system. I grew restless. “Babu! Opore chole aasun” The Captain called me to the bridge. He recognised my restless urban attitude. He introduced himself as a local and boastfully said that he owns a chain of ferries. He tried to comfort me saying that within a couple of hours the water level would rise further to dislodge from the ferry. I lit up another Marlborough. I passed out to nostalgia.

                       It was the beginning of 3^rd Semester. And I was all alone again. Like the ferry I was drifted. I sailed high spirited from the school into the college by the company of two person, Udayan and Anwesha. Their friendship was strong like the currents of the high tide. Their friendship to the loner was like the swelling water to the ferry stranded at the bank. I was sailing all good when the underwater delta struck my boat. They left me. Rather I would say just as the tide lowered, our specialization branches separated. I was like the stranded ferry.

                      “Babu! O Babu! Ghat eshe poreche.” ‘Mister! O Mister! The ghats arrived.” The captain woke me up. Sheepishly I realised that I fell asleep. And climbed down to the deck making my way off the ferry. 

Song of the Silence

“To taste the emptiness, listen to the silence, like the hiss of a blank tape playing. It’s a bit awesome.” Said Ted as he rode to Tripoli though the Libyan deserts.

Have you ever listened silence? Has anyone ever? The questions bugged me as I rode on a public bus. I withdrew to think keeping Ted’s ‘Jupiter’s Travel’ aside. Despite of the loud cranking of the bus engine and the bedlam of chitchats of fellow commuters I felt myself passing into a ‘silence’. A Silence that can only be perceived by a loner. And I am a loner; the one who keeps him separates.

Silence! The classroom became silent after the teacher growled. But is it really? I can hear the pages of the book turn, pencils scratching on the paper, finger snapping the tip of a chalk and the squeaking of the fans. I can hear the leaves of the Shimul tree rattle, the squirrels play and the birds tweet. At times I can hear our principal shouting out from his office. So why did the teacher make us silent? Why can’t his growl hush-up everything?

At times we were taken to the Temple in our Campus. Everybody said it was ‘Stark Silent’. Yet can’t you hear the rubber resin dripping into the hemispherical pots in the nearby rubber plantation or the carpenter’s saw or might be the humming of the chants.

In all these silences I heard a song, a tune; refreshing and rejuvenating. The song of the silence can only be perceived with a sensitive heart than a sensitive ear.

      

Renaissance

I am a single child. Born on 26th of June in the year 1995. I have an unique family, the best I guess, the idealistic: in every every manner. My grandpa was a college lecturer and most importantly, an artist. He is trained in  psychology and he used to train people about 'how to train?' He is a master of 'idealistic' child psychology which I think now is far from what it is needed to be now ( I might be wrong about it). So He trained my father to train me to be an idealist. So accordingly I was kept away from all the rat-races, say whether it be a painting competition or the competition to get a good rank in the class. I was never taken to an Art School, a place where small kids were forced to draw, rather I would say copy, what their trainer thought would increase their ability to make beautiful sketches; and most importantly win more medals and trophies in sit-n-draw competitions. By the time all kids of my age was making sketches of fruit-baskets or village scenery, I was busy making sketches of F-16 fighter jets or 'Titanic' or might be an aircraft crashing into one of the Twin towers. So I didn't develop a single idea about how to draw a tree properly or just say sufficiently enough to look like a tree. But I had ideas, a lot of them. And I can boast that those were far better that those beautiful looking sketches of trees because my ugly & grotesque tree had a soul, it depicted an idea, rather than just being a tree.

                     Then years later, when I joined 'my school' that sculpted me into what I am now, my art-n-craft teacher introduced me to a mystic world, our art gallery, our 'Saradadevi Chitrashala'. I tried to paint, sketch and draw, but couldn't satisfy myself. Because I had more to say through my paintings and I was a less efficient artist. My 'Trees' had their soul, but were so grotesque that people even didn't consider looking into it. I was sad.

                     It happened to be my 9th standard in School. It was June. One day an e-bay package arrived home. I even didn't have an idea what e-bay was back at that time. Grandpa said it was for me from his daughter, my father's sister and of course my 'Pishi'. It turned out to be a digital point and shoot camera. This gift considerably changed the course of my creativity. I kind of gave up painting with colours, pencils and pens and started to paint with light. Soon I found out that I could express my thoughts somewhat in a way better than I could do with paintbrushes.

                        For last 4-5 years, I had completely gave up painting or sketching and turned to camera. But an unexpected event occurred. I met a girl, a good 'Friend' she turned out to be. It was her birthday two weeks back. So I was thinking and thinking and was perhaps over thinking what I could have gift her. Suddenly I was struck by the Idea that, 'Why not I give her a sketch book?' , So I gifted her a sketch book. It was all right until the moment I returned home. A strange question started disturbing me, 'Why have you given up something that was in your bloodline?' I couldn't wait longer. I scavenged through what colors and paintbrushes I was left with, and I made a painting, a recreation of one of my photograph taken. So it started.

           So, it is now She who kinda a fuels me to paint, only by discussing painting and art-forms of other artists. Thanks.