time of my life

My flight’s in about less than 6 hours from now and I have packed. Yet I am in a hurry as I haven’t blogged for the last 2 days or so.I am already impatient and somewhat fidgety. But,emoting freely in a space which has the risk of being viewed by almost anyone is not scary anymore. Neither does it hold the threat of exposure, nor does it have to be measured. Perhaps the world’s getting more tolerant about individual spaces. Certainly not in politics, but perhaps,just a wee-bit with blogs The last two weeks in kolkata have been lovely. Have been through the initial phase of being alone for the first time in my life, having to get used to complete strangers including ‘Betty’, the latest love of my life who’s gradually inching towards raiding my bed. My poor sura “yasin” got licked the other night. Wondering what our ‘Towba’ Mullahs would say to that. Let me get worse….perhaps my Jainamaz as well…which did look a little bit displaced this evening. Oh Betty, hope you never become a Diamond, coz i ain’t no Einstein!

It’ll be hard leaving my host tomorrow morning. She’s been busy, wondering what to serve me for breakfast at 6:00.In spite of my repeated assurances of not having breakfast that early, she has insisted that I have one. I have difficulty saying ‘no’ to anything and anyone above 45, so God be with me this time. Love comes naturally to this lady, my 80 year old host:”Jaythima”. Conscious about displaying affection too soon, she also has her own defense mechanism. But right from the 4th day of my arrival, she’s let her hair down. She’s never at home. She socializes more than I ever have. She attends more meetings of various organizations that I ever could dream of. She gets upset about sacking people, hates being hard on anyone, is terrible about taking ruthless decisions that all the institutions that she’s involved with, demand of her. She has her eyes open about me and my cheese, my cereal, my bread, my towel, my napkin et al. My bathroom even has a tiny bear holding a bouquet. All in my honor. Her guests who come freely to chat with her and enjoy her company, have started taking my presence seriously I am now the latest addition to her lovely fleet of loyal hearts. None has ever left her. To her Maya, Dilip,Biju, Yousuf and all, she’s just plain and simple ‘ma’. To the Anonya Fruit store wallah in New Market, she’s simply ‘ma’. To the Gopalchandra Sweets gang, simply ‘ma’ again. She’s ‘ma’ to the local bank officers too as even there, she’s scored a serious one. She has been the first client of the branch. She’s a first-er, as one could say.

Her sister-out-law tells me that she’s been having a ball with me around. Frankly,I haven’t done a thing. The only out of the way courtesy I have shown was when she was a little unwell and I had gone and just sat beside her for not more than five minutes. She was up in no time, ever grateful for that tiny little silly moment. All I ever do is simply spare 10 minutes on the breakfast table , just to listen to what she has to say. Her conversation, even as early as 7 in the morning is all about memories. Difference is her meories haven’t collected any dust. She uses a fresh duster every morning with me and puts them back to their original compartments. She hasn’t repeated a thing so far. So every toast is a delight while I listen to her pouring her heart out to me. Every sip of coffee smells brilliant with her telling me tales about her “Ziddi” pet, a croco in her bath tub. The muesli tastes lovely while I watch her narrating her life with the “ullu” for seven short months and the very old “ullu” that travelled with her all over North Bengal while the aircraft authority never objected to her Ms.Daisy. Daisy was what she called the animal( she’d be offended if she read this blog …at the callous mention of the word:animal)and Daisy did travel great distances with her and her husband.

 Ghor bhora,bhora lagbey na ar. She tells me in utter sadness that the house won’t be the same with me leaving tomorrow morning. I know she’s forgotten that it’s only two weeks since we’ve met and barely 10 days since we really started communicating. Well, I have too. I hug her and tell her that I’m coming back on the 3rd, 2 days ahead of schedule. She’s pleased now, and relieved.

If 10 minutes of cereal hour is all that’s needed, shouldn’t we all simply race at winning them all over? Sounds worthwhile to me. Almost identitical to the ‘buy one get one free’syndrome with a difference: 10 minutes for a whole tightly and freshly packaged, wise heart. Quite a deal, isn’t it?

 Kolkata, November 21, 2006

At 6:00 in the morning an alarming voice at the end of the wire informed me of a bomb blast at Jalpaiguri. Thanks to net, my New Yorker was calling me asking me if I knew about it already or if she was the one delivering the news first. I assured her that she had won the race over The Telegraph which wouldn’t reach me till 7:00 A.M. That’s what we do the best, break news to each other of gruesome murder, Bandh, Oborodh, Shohingsha, blasts, invasion et al. But that too has a routine. Early morning comes in with Bad news, midmorning comes with mundane personal challenges, noon with gossip across the town, late afternoon with year end plans and city happenings, evening with tele update completing the bubble.

Our bubbles have extra ears. No perforation. No eyes. No mind. We have simple, clear bubbles which pick up on news from all over the frontiers, yet they manage to remain in tact. It’s like wearing a headphone to listen to an Ipod covered in a challenging woolen cover of fluorescent pink. How do we get to know about the good things? Well, special notes are left on our doorstep and when we have a moment’s peace, we poke the bubble ourselves, step outside it and check our red mailbox for new mail. That’s the moment when we seize our chances to breathe in fresh air. The run to the box is a nano second long one compared to an eternity of boxed, bubble lives…

My current philosophy has brought me close to practising an alternative mode of existence: a bean bag existence.

A bubble, a balloon or a bean bag? It was just the other day that I had spent almost three hours surfing for a bed tray with a bean bag bottom. It exists. Once, I had bought it in
Thailand. In spite of my semi-Chinese capability of reproduction and zero innovation, I failed to achieve the flexibility of the tray with substitute fillings. It was only then I truly fell in love with my old, ugly, brown tray. It moved when I moved. It sunk when I beat it. It resumed original position when I decided to give it a name. It suddenly, was our baby, being carried from one room to the other. Our Bean Baby. Our Lil’ ole Beano enjoyed its ride while it lasted. My unsuccessful yet exhaustive search of bean trays told me that I was cheap and that I could not convince this Scrooge heart of mine to buy a bed tray on line and send it to my New Yorker by mail. Cost only UsD 80.00=Taka 5600.00. Good in Math always, I quickly calculated the ECG charges that I would have to suffer while I would be calculating the enormous chase that I would embark upon, just trying to locate the New Beano in transit. In all fairness, Amazon does a lousy job at times. Therefore, the hours I would spend agonizing over a Beano reaching my New Yorker would be utterly worthless. Added to the strife would be the mere fact of my baby not being comfortable in her Ikea model self assembled bed which barely gave her space to lay her head down. That thing has the risk of falling apart every time she changes side. Trust me. I know it. I screwed ( literally ) it and used a full fledged tool box to connect the pieces of wood. I thank God and Ikea both for this excellent collaboration invested in their joint project of carpentry. Without Divine intervention, I would have failed my task, being unable to assemble the bed. At the same time, without Ikea, I would have never learnt Boloram’s job( Boloram, our dear carpenter has been coming to our home for years and always finds something to make, without or without order). He’s been magic for us. We need a cupboard…abracadabra…Bolorom….makes one; We need a table….wow….done in 48 hours. The wood’s always ready in the garage and Boloram right at our doorstep. Anyway, back to Beano. I finally sent My Beano to NY in a suitcase with dad. Bet he was happy with the trip and his new home. That’s what’s best with Beano. He always accommodates. Just like a Bangali Bodhu, Shadharon Bangali Bodhu. He accepts the change of position, place and weather. He’s never jet lagged, never hurt, and always holds whatever you place on him. What ever could be better? Difference is, I’ve named him “Bean-o” this time. Thought with the excesses of feminism, I don’t want to run the risk of a gender debate. Therefore, Bean-ie has been given a holiday and Beano has taken over, all ready for a good round of rotting under my New Yorker’s bed for months, all forgotten and dusty. Girls these days don’t have a heart, do they?

what do you do with a 2:16 am blogger who’s suddenly decided to do bok-bok-blogging at this hour? have decided to take you out for a ride and remind you the lovely bengali phrases that we’ve all grown up with. in case of you don’t belong to us and are one of the ‘others’ (sorry i have come to believe in borders again), take a break. this blogger won’t be of any use to you. ’cause i’m blogging in Bengali today. well, almost.

Moger Mulluk: i was strangely reminded of this phrase the other day when my supervisor, rimi, spoke about her novel : the city of love  being based in chittagong and discusses the chaotic race of Mog’s. relevance: the caretakers. maybe a refilming of the mod sqaud could be a possible diversion in this election comedy with yasmin murshed in boots,starring with an AK 22(or whatever) in her hands. after all, saka chow must have taught her some antics.

boshtey diley shuitey chaye: give an inch and he’ll want a mile. relevance: aziz wants a bed now.

kala polar nam poddolochon: the hillarity of naming a dark boy ‘fair.’ relevance: iyaz, the ugly ducking, just up from an open heart and apparently strongly handling 6 portfolios.

kuttar laz baro bosor chongat raikhley jey be(k)ha shey be(k)ha : a dog’s tail, if tied tightly to a tunnel, will never change its form in even 12 years. relevance: bangladeshi politicians who are unredeemable.

patey goo thakley jilapio hagon zai: if you are well stocked with shit, you can make circles with it. relevance: BNP with money power has grabbed the nation by its bolz. all’s right with the world as long as they have sufficient green shit to share with those who matter

pisa maro (sounds italian enough?): hit them with the broom. relevance: the ultimate slogan for the public and can be hurled towards any direction. every bangladeshi needs a hit now.

 churi, churi ,sina churi: not merely a theft, but a grand robbery. relevance: tarique zia suing hasina on defamation grounds !:) !:( !! hah hah hah

shat khondo ramayan porey shita kar bap: after a thorough reading of ramayana, one asks: whose father is Sita?relevance: in spite of mass demand, the chief advisor’s apparent indifference to the actual plot

jummaye jummaye shat din: it’s only been a week. relevance: tarique zia,the ambitious kid out in the untimely run.

nijer pondey goo porerer koy thu thu: having shit in your back, how dare you condemn the other? relevance: politiciams who seldom use toilet papers

Apparently akadoshi, the position of the moon is controlling my ‘athrilisis’.

Took me a while to realize what she was talking about. Another female in my life, Roma, the lastest addition and a period piece who thinks she’s about to cure my life long aches and pains around my shoulder blades. Roma, is herself thin, a yogi and tries selling balms at a discounted rate. She claims that the tiger balms are specially made at an area closer to where she lives and are sold for half the price, meaning the awfully smelly, numbing balm that I recently purchased at Rupees 10, is available in her neighborhood at Rs 5. Hmmmm….an awful saver, Romola. Where were you all my life when I had blown all my money away on medicines, massage mania and machines?

Back to ‘arthrilisis’. To Romola, arthrilisis is an early form of paralysis. They are equally dangerous, she says and therefore, I understand her reasons for freely borrowing: ‘lysis’ from complete immobility, and tries to scare the hell out of her patients. She’s neither a nurse, nor an orthopedic doctor. She doesn’t fall into the general category of masseur as she does not soothe her victims with massage. Instead, she stingily uses a balm, rubs it on too lightly for comfort, allows a hot water bag and a five minute recess and then suddenly she’s right back asking you to exercise. All the exercises are Romafied versions. She has taken it upon her own intuitive shoulders-the task of healing those who need her, but all in her own style. Therefore, Roma’s wish has been my command for the last couple of days as I have laid my bones and nerves on a platter, right before her, for the goddess to dissect them, study them, extract enough juice out of them and then finally put them back together, patch them, stitch them, or even glue them as per her desire. At this point, I can only hope that I will not suffer Roma will not deconstruct me any further and that I will become ‘one’ again, someday, somehow. I am counting on organic unity. My ‘nuss’ are supposedly all screwed up. Nuss?? Well…she means ‘nerves’.

Nov 16’ 2006

Food, politics and ideology at Jadavpur

What’s life all about if not having a chance to listen to Thumri and Smt.Vidya Rao’s (from Orient Longman)  paper on ‘khana aur gana’, food and music? I’d like to call it: fantabulous multi-mating of disciplines. The English department of Jadavpur University had organized a conference on Food and its representation in politics, culture and ideology. The second paper was from Jayanta Sen Gupta, Professor in the Department of History at JU. His title was: Nation on a Platter? The Culture and Politics of Food in Colonial Bengal, and the paper stressed on the European colonizer and the Bangali bhodrolok’s idea on the concept of an ‘ideal diet’. Then came Prof Shymaal Bagchee from the university of Alberta talking about food and cultural excahange at Contact Zones, who provided a fascinating display of the different versions of The Last Supper. It was amazing discovering serious minds cracking jokes on food and trying to stretch their creative psyche beyond academia.

The seminar’s 3 days long and just started today. However, even while the inaugural session was merely taking shape, right after Professor Jashodhara Bagchi had spoken, I took a short break and was deep into outlining my own paper trying to bridge the two Bengals logically through reason, poetry and opportunity. I can’t seem to help it, though. Wherever I am, whatever I am doing, my mind manages to find its way back to my notes, to the half read books that I carry all the time with me and the recently disciplined pages of an old journal.

Kolkata is gently training me. My life starts with the Azan that wakes everyone up right at 5:00 am. It is refreshing to see Mayfair Avenue, Bright Street and the adjacent area housing so many Muslims. My host is a devout Hindu woman, but I am also sure that half her prayers are currently about me not eating sufficiently in her household. My triglyserides owe Jaythima at least one thank-you card a day. ‘Fear factor’ has become an acceptable media challenge that I may consider worth taking part in just because I have faced Betty. Betty, the boxer in the house with huge, ‘breaking-my-heart’ looks and fluttering heavy lashes (Oh Betty, will you give me some of yours, please?)  has broken the bars. She’s learnt to come closer to me without sniffing, barking or making any noise. I am quietly assured by her sense of propriety in my presence though I suspect she has licked all my books, shoes … God forbid, hopefully not my lingerie.

The major transformation has been in the area of space. I am at home, here in a basic room with a basic bath, beginning to be happy with my travel pack cosmetics. I have almost become an instant package. I dare you, no…correction… I double dare you to blow me away and I will soon be back, ready to be stirred into your cup, fitting your taste buds and senses. I have become the Taster’s Choice, the Nescafe of this inconveniently true warm winter. Therefore, I sleep quietly, alone after a session of Me, Myself and Rubana in my bed, unusually comfortable with my pillow or with my “Je suis malade” hot pack.

The other obsession’s my Paper Chase. I chase books, papers, thoughts and perspectives. If there are people who I can listen to, learn a nano bit from, I chase them straight away. Beware, men and women of talent! Long walks have become a habit and asking directions every 2 minutes-a very formidable practice. While all of them raise their eyes and say: Odharey, over there, I secretly hope for my direction knight in shorts/dhoti

to point his finger to the exact building and say: ‘there you go, m’am.’ It hasn’t happened yet. Instead I have faced innumerable taxi drivers who take me in for long rides and raise the meter. So, suffice it to mention that directions cost money.

My ‘ji’ had drawn attention of a Muslim taxi driver who still dreams of uniting the Kalema Bondage between the Muslims of two Bengal. Poor fool. I kept up with him till he finished his Phupima stories which featured her being in East Bengal, just because his father and his aunt had fought over their division of land and had parted ways. But my illustrious cab driver, Qazi Serajuddin wouln’t just end there. He went on to ask me about politics in Bangladesh .This is where I shut him up. After all, Politics and Islam are way beyond eras of Chomsky, Said and Pinter. They are mine now.

Indian population is invading London, which is now known as the “capital of greater India”. The latest figures in June from the office of the National Statistics reveal one third of Londoners are born abroad. Indians are heavily investing in London and many Indian bankers are joining banks like ICICI in UK. Even Big B’s moved away from Bombay and lives in London, “rubbing shoulders” with Gordon Brown (The Telegraph, Nov 15’06). Language, of course is Hinglish. A dictionary like Baljinder Mahal’s ‘Queen’s Hinglish: How to Speak Pukka’ should be of immense assistance to those aspiring to speak in chutnified langue.

Suddenly the new generation looks smarter in India. Their newly evolved hamburger identities, sipping cold latte in a Reliance cyber café, reading mails, surfing net, calling clients, sounding eternally busy and smart…how did all of this happen, I wonder in silence. How does a Bangladeshi kid level with this degree of street smartness?  A Bangladeshi kid is essentially shy, is taught to appear so with the exception of a quiet salam and a complicit smile in front of guests. The school system in Bangladesh offers mutually exclusive choices of English/Bengali. Those opting for Bangla medium are banished forever from the land of exposure and basic learning of the foreign language and therefore end up with a vocabulary of 100 words by the time Class X is knocking at their door. Those opting for English medium are bound to be kids from a well to do background and those who can afford to alienate themselves from the mainstream culture. These two groups of kids live in utterly different worlds and are cut out for separate paths. Indian education makes no distinction between the kids in educational institutions. Yes there may be private schools breeding snobs, but there are equally competent (if not more) schools that are open to public.  Hence education is uniformly spread out amongst the population where English and the other state languages don’t clash. Then how has the hyper nationalistic, frantic Bangali asking for eradication of English helped our soil? How has the education system of India created a Jyati Basu and Buddhadev Bhattacharya who live with utmost democratic tolerance and respect for all? And how has our love of our mother tongue created educated monsters like M.A Aziz, soon to be named Bisshwa Behaya?

Nov 13, 2006

The tiny little aircraft with not-so-divine wings with its ugly propellers stood as a tribute to schedule. While the national carrier failed its schedule, the little one promised the travelers a 45 minute ride to the nearest neighborhood: India, Calcutta. For a fussy and a nervous flyer like me, the impending doom of flirting with the 14000 feet height was not at all appealing. I hate clouds and I hate the bumps, tremors, turbulence and fasten seat belt signs. The pilot’s mid way announcements are what I dread the most. But I enjoy is my sense of ultimate submission to my Maker, who perhaps forgives me just because I turn out to be a devout Muslim, up in the air. I become an absolute court jester while defying gravity. I cover my head and then begin muttering familiar Suras coupled with Darud Sharif 11 times, at every go. I was always told by my Huzurs (female ofcourse) that Daruds always strengthen the appeal and God grants us an audience at His earliest.

So I obey. However, this time was an exception. I used a brief one liner and said: Help me, God and was sure that He would have no time to evaluate me as there were just too many hands being raised towards His direction with special prayers being offered for democracy at home. Like the very old Bengali, Bangali, Bangladeshi, Leagues, Dol’s communities, associations cropping up at every corner in the world, I too become an instant box of nostalgia the minute I walk away from home. I smell the dailies on board, look at every column, color, photograph that come my way when I write. Every trip seems to be the terminal one. Yet I never leave, and never fail to long for the Dhaka sky.

The newspapers added the last bit of spice to my pre-landing exercise. The query begins at the immigration desk. How’s it going down there, who do you think is right, do you think there’s going to be an intervention, etc, etc….I prepare my well practiced responses which do not correspond to the rhythm of my heart. Little do I have the ability to explain that citizens like us don’t make a difference in the rule of power and that we are all fighting our private battles in our special modes.

Kolkata should have been Kolikata. The extra ‘i’ would then add some more ‘I’ to it. The roads have the touch of Hind in them. I try and refresh my memory …when was it that I heard my father speak in Hindi? Possibly never. But needless to say, that the shabbiest Airtel or Hutch agent in his shorts and grubby t-shirt has more to offer to an outsider; he offers a fresh, tempting package of deals and frequencies, even speaks about a wireless internet WiFi card in ‘hot spots’, and tries establishing some contact with the visitor. The ‘Hoye Jabey’, ‘Pawa Jabey’s of Kolkata is music to someone who’s used to negatives at home. The internet café that simply gets the work done without frills is far more efficient than the broadband that I use through my plasma screen at home. No frills, and just plain living seems to be the ethos of the people. This month when Professor Yunus won the Nobel for Peace, I thought I would name us: ‘Gramer desh Bangladesh’. With cell phone at every corner of the country, micro credit reaching the poorest of the poor, we all thought that we would give birth to fresh people, mooted in conviction and made in South Asia. The difference between Dhaka and Kolkata is enormous. The weather’s cooler here. With a half hour difference, how on earth can they enjoy a separate sky? Well, Dhaka has an impatient pace wrecked with humidity and frustration. Every one’s on the move with or without purpose. But here in Cal, everyone tries to sell. No wonder the growth is at an 8%; no wonder Minister Chidamvaram speaks the fiscal language flawlessly. Looking at the dailies, one’s astonished to see how far the entrepreneurs have taken their businesses. The big boys are offering stem cell banking benefits to their employees meaning that the employees will enjoy the privilege of saving the cells of their new born in a bank so that future disease can be tackled with the aid of science while Dhaka’s still talking about minimum wage and HR issues. To a researcher of my kind who planned to continue education one exceptional morning and decided to inflict academic pain to the soul bruised with corporate policies, Kolkata offers the best of the best. Not only am I only half hour away from home, I have the opportunity to breathe in a different soil and am positioned to undertake the lonely journey to yet another phase in my life. When one steers the soul away from the humdrum of the corporate life, desires cease. One wants lesser than usual and loves basics. The going isn’t that tough anymore and the toughest don’t need to shop anymore. Then where is the hot spot of a rooted flaneur which is used to malls, surfaces, shifts and transits? Maybe it is busy digging answers up from the crooked tin roof of a dilapidated hut in a distance; or maybe it’s gone out for a small stroll down the Bolpark area in search of a hygienic bhelpuriwala.

Maybe, just maybe the hint of a mosquito net, neighborhood hindi tunes, drunken panwala’s sales pitch, books with hand bound covers of sari cloth bragging of a decolonized in Writers Workshop are all that the venturing stroller has finally allowed his or her core to discover. The rest of the territory has a ‘No entry’ sign dangling around its neck and has applied for unconditional leave for an indefinite period.

  My time with her

Nov 14, 2006

Morning started at 7:00 with a cup of raw tea with her. She talks about her undying attachment for strainers that don’t rest on stands, rather settle inside a teapot. She recollects a London day when he niece who’s now big and lives in Hampstead had introduced the particular gadget to her. My time’s short. A glance at the Daily Telegraph and a quick read of the paper including the business page and the right hand corner side line on Bangladesh and the police beating people to death. Whoever wants to hear about tragedies, anyway? It was just today that I was reading in a reference book that Bengali never got close to the Greek sense of “tragedy” and hence grief was completely forbidden in early Sanskrit plays. This only meant that people preferred to run away from life and enjoy art to block pain. Life proves it, I guess, especially when one continues with Colgate shots throughout one’s life. Guess we end up being the biggest promoter and loyalists of art instead. I try and settle down with my reading material, wondering why Writers Workshop had promoted so many amateurs, so many young writers and why Mr. P.Lal had promoted the branding of Anglophone poetry in India so vehemently. Even if he did, why did he insist on the alternative publishing pattern which was hand bound in hand woven sari cloth? Simple. He just wanted to brand the pattern of writing. He wanted to be different, climb out of the post colonized state and perhaps dreamt of creating an “intimate enemy”. Anyway, my host knocks on my door and reminds me along with her boxer that I am to accompany her to Camac street. I agree, exceptionally quickly, knowing that it was an opportunity for me to get dropped off by her Maruti instead of the dusty, grimy, yellow tin boxes that put the word “Ambassador” to shame. If those dinosaurs were to be truly represent India, then Bangalore and the rest of India on the run would possibly burn those down along with the concept of recycling. They would never ever want a resurrection of the ugliest and the most inefficient. To make things worse, these ambassadors are driven by terrible drivers who intentionally take you for an unnecessary spin and get their meters high. Getting back to my hostess, must mention that she’s the wife of a government official who worked in the forest department. This part makes me sad. I watch her talk about her dead partner, who valued the life and integrity of a bureaucrat and did not put up with silvers on the table. I hear her talk about her husband who wanted her to drink a scotch with him every night and loved her to death. I listen in absolute wonder when she talks about their last night together with absolute passion and remembers how he wanted her to cook the last meal. I wonder when she goes inside her bedroom and comes out with a smile on her face telling me that she had just said goodbye to her husband. She does talk to her memories and she loves living around them and about them. She whispers her sadness to my ears cautioning me of a tomorrow that awaits me somewhere down the line. The 61 years of life that they had together and the lovely diamond jubilee on the 50^th are fresh yesterdays that’ll stay with her till the end of her life. Wish I could do a ‘Weekdays with Santwana’ at some point. Mitch Albom with his ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ needs some help now, I bet.

I enjoy listening to her donating all her tusks to the Forest Museum instead of selling it to the illegal bidders. I enjoy, I enjoy.

My host and I just got back from a play directed by a professor of English at the Jadavpur University. It was an Indianized version of Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls. Enjoyed the pace of the play and enjoyed the feminine slogans through out the production. The frequent use of F and S words did not surprise me. A royally F’d generation should live the word up completely, after all. 

Meanwhile, Dhaka burns.

when i was little, i used to relish several fantasies. one of them was me being the only one having a soul, or rather, a mind. every other person riding in the next car appeared to be without a brain or a conscience. that was a trip  i enjoyed and it lasted for almost a year till brain cells finally surfaced in my rotten curly headland. i also enjoyed a few memories that i clung onto for a long, long time. for example, i remember having cried way back in 1975, after we had lost Sheikh Mujib. some tears, some false sense of being had already blessed me, the lump of fat who was stepping into her teens. another memory of shab-e-barat has me praying through out the night without any formal prayer, but just asking God to give me the best while i heard my old man complaining about his never ending rounds of receiving : old wine in new bottle.

strangely, after so many years, i have managed to reconnect with the same old feelings. i suddenly feel alone in my quest, suddenly cry for the lost chance of democracy, suddenly feel that He hasn’t been blessing our barat at all. i feel coincidentally tuned to ‘catch 22′ situation. a CBC producer in Delhi asked me what my response was to the current scenario. i plainly wrote: catch 22. AL, our major opposition party seems to have fallen into the arms of an irreversible situation. the election tune is on. the caretaker cabinet is formed. and if bangladesh is lucky, we will have elections in january, with or without an accurate voter list, with or without the main opposition happy with the pre election settlements and concessions, with or without anyone feeling secure about the electoral process or the object of democracy. who cares as long as the schedule is maintained? who cares as long as the alliances are fine and fed well?who cares at all?

well, i for one, promised a friend last night that i’d go into politics  if tareq ever became our PM. i meant it.