माँ

Kyun tere haath ki chai

Lagti itni meethi hai,

Kyun swaad tere chulhe ki

Kahin aur nai milti.

Maa, tu kyun itni achhi hai?

Godi mein tere

Jannat ki hai chaav,

Aanchal mein teri

Sukoon hoon paati. 

Maa, tu kyun itni achhi hai?

Khamoshiyon mein chhupi

Baatein sunn leti,

Chehra dekhke

Dil padh leti.

Maa, tu kyun itni achhi hai?

Ghar hai tu, duniya bhi.

Aaina hai tu, parchhai bhi.

Hasi mein tere hausla hai mila,

Dard mein paayi duaein teri. 

Maa, tu kyun itni acchi hai? 

- Sayantani Sarkar.

Anatomy of a Reader

In all my mortal years, the one question that has followed me everywhere is, “Why do you love reading?” and I’ve never known how to answer that. It’s the same as asking why do you love a person; it’s because, you just do. It’s not just one reason, but thousands. Reasons you can fill parchments with, reasons that can transform minutes to moons.

When I was 5 years old, my father gifted me my first fairy tale. I stayed past my bedtime reading about the ill-treated girl who found her magic slippers and her happily-ever-after, and since then, there was no looking back. Stories became my home and my escape. When all the other kids were attending soccer games and ballet lessons, I was devouring pages and pages of The Golden Trio’s adventures and Ruskin Bond’s mountain escapades.

Words capture me, words liberate me. I stand in front of my bookshelf and admire it for hours. I set the trolley overflowing with new releases in spite of already having unread titles. I wish to bottle up the smell of old pages and sprinkle them across the mundane Muggle world. I disagree that Classics are more important than Young Adult Fiction, because that is a fight between my two families and I’m not ready to pick a side. I refuse to choose between J.K. Rowling and J.D. Salinger. I’m dejected because Hans Hubermann deserved to live. I’m disgruntled with Eleanor and Park’s unfinished letters. I’m distressed over The Little Prince’s journey coming to an end. If you were to rip my heart open, you’d find words swimming in the galaxy of hardcovers and paperbacks through the lanes of romance and dystopia and among the bookmarks and sticky notes, with my tombstone reading, ‘Just one more chapter.’

We readers are peculiar beings. We’re the ones with the creepy smiles on the subway, brooding over that twisted ending. We’re the ones in the cafe too lost to notice that our tea has gone cold. We’re the ones with the slightly heavier bags because that book just had to be fit in. We can sit beside you, and still be far away. We’re in the crowd, and yet distinct; our crooked glasses and fandom halos accompanying us. Our big books consume our tiny universe, and we carry our favourite stories in between the dust jackets of our souls. We wish phone calls would replace the continents between us and our beloved authors. We never forget the characters we befriended; the characters who became our friends and mirror and confidante. We’ve had our hearts conquered by Mr. Darcy and Augustus Waters in ways we’ll never recover from. We’ve fallen down the rabbit hole and taken the Hogwarts Express and discovered the magic wardrobe. We’ve seen reality and fiction mingle. We’ve known too much to trust easily, and read too much to lose hope. We’re the daydreamers, the believers, the survivors, the chosen ones.

We, are the readers, and this is our story. 

The Purple Heart

He’s the boy who survived,

And the dead lullaby.

He's the Purple Heart,

And the lopsided smile.

He’s the colors in grey,

And the prayers in white.

He's the quiet of the noisy mess,

And the song on a silent road.

He's the summer I'll never forget,

And the night I can’t remember.

He's the silence of the words unsaid,

And the echo of my loud thoughts.

He's the memory of the bonfire,

The half story of this broken poem.

- Sayantani Sarkar.

The Big Bong Theory

Disclaimer: I’m a Bengali, and I don’t like roshogolla.

For centuries, being a Bong has been associated with the incidental notion of being gifted. Unfortunately, it also comes with the unwritten pact of being devoted to rice and literally every fish in the sea. Whenever I refused to allow a piece of pomfret from being dumped on my plate or declared that rice doesn’t need to be a part of daily life, all I received were incredulous stares from apparently devastated relatives. Clearly they didn’t get the point of growing up with Shawarma and Kabsa.

While studying in the capital city, I came across tons of people who praised my voice and made it synonymous with Saraswati Maa’s blessing over Kolkata. I blame Shreya Ghoshal. If you grew up in a Bengali household, you were probably sent for music classes since the age of five and made to practice Tagore’s songs on your grandmother’s harmonium. You hummed Bhoomi’s songs with your friends and danced to Bondhu Teen Din. You worshipped Dada as the best goddamn cricketer and had heated debates about Mohun Bagan and East Bengal.

We Bengalis take our literature, food, history, and discipline very seriously. You’re not a Bengali if you haven’t cried spicy tears during a Phuchka competition.  You’re not a Bengali if you haven’t indulged in an argument about North Calcutta and South Calcutta. You’re not a Bengali if you haven’t searched and sniffed those ancient classics at College Street. You’re not a Bengali if New Market isn’t your shopper’s paradise. You’re not a Bengali if haven’t had hours and hours of adda at The Coffee House. You’re not a Bengali if you haven’t gone for a night-long pandal hopping during Durga Puja and painted your face red. You’re not a Bengali if intellect, grace, and memories weren’t passed on to you as heritage. You’re not a Bengali if thinking about your city doesn’t fill your heart with pride.

Be careful before you visit The Land of Bongs, because the temple bells and the Bengali air will pollute your lungs with an eerie peace. Don’t come to Calcutta if you despise crowds, because the bespectacled beings will entice you with their knowledge and humour. Don’t come to Calcutta if you don’t like art, because every corner of this city has a story to tell. And lastly, don’t come to Calcutta if you’re afraid of love, because the City of Joy will pull you into an embrace, and make you stay. 

The Hybrid Child

I’ve been a nomad ever since I can remember, hopping from one destination to another. I was born near the ocean, flown across skies and continents, and raised by the desert. I imagined my luggage had wheels and wings, apparating me to distant lands whose art I was yet to devour. All those stamps on my passport testified my wanderlust gene. That’s how I learnt, that’s how I thrived, and that’s how I’ve become.

Growing up in the Arab kingdom was a royal affair of exotic food, hypnotic lights and orgasmic colognes. Mom gifted me Sherlock Holmes and Dad introduced me to Feluda. Chanting of the Hanuman Chalisa was accompanied by echoes of the Fajr prayer. Aloo Posto was a dinner favourite and so was Fettuccine Alfredo. Tagore’s Rabindra Sangeet filled the silence as much as Beethoven’s symphonies. School was all about the exchange of Tiffin boxes and bellowing lunchtime blabber; boxes that carried over a dozen cuisines, and blabber that comprised of 16 different tongues, all resonating as the sound of friendship. Summer vacations often meant receiving weird looks from the crowd because our Chevrolet had suddenly transformed into a rickety rickshaw and my 5-year-old self couldn’t fathom why. Dumplings were replaced with Phuchka, and all I could do was hog on the spicy snack beside the filthy stall while the audience blinked at my naive glee. Curiosity stitched us together.

People sympathised with my frequent address fluctuation. “I don’t mind it”, I said, concealing the smirk of my Bohemian heart. Half the population marveled at my ability to speak in Bengali and the rest was befuddled by my fluent English. “Why can’t I know both?” I asked. After all, one was the dialect in my blood, and the other was the voice in my soul.

I laughed at the stories of the Red Tide and shared them with the White Cricket. I engraved my name on the stone walls and the black sand, and believed it would stay. I waddled through lanes unknown. They were strangers, till they became home. I met people who counted the same stars and danced on the same ground. I got lost, till I was found. I left my mark on the roads abound.  

A map. A world. A giant sea. I could drown. I could fly. A thousand possibilities. I watched and observed and witnessed, and ultimately realized that if you listen very closely, it all melts into one vision and one language and one heartbeat. Call us travelers, rovers or gypsies; we’re all the same kettle of fish. I’m happy with having one foot on the ground and other on the move. And I refuse to cease exploring till my existence is marked with the ink of adventures and my blood becomes an amalgamation of all the soils my lips have touched. Till I meander, till I wonder, till I breathe.

Butterflies

“I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.”

If only it was as easy as Julia Roberts made it sound, right? Or maybe it is. As I finish watching Notting Hill for the umpteenth time, it makes me wonder. Why should loving someone come with the package of wet pillows and blue music?

Let me tell you something: love is everything it’s deemed to be. It’s crazy, cranky, silly, sappy, illogical and immature. It’s passion and poetry wrapped in the form of a human being. It’s the 15-year-old giggling in your 30-something body. It’s wobbly knees and a butterfly tummy. It’s benches and dried leaves and letters and photographs. It’s someone who makes you stay awake till 5am despite your droopy eyes, and run to the airport because you just can’t seem to say goodbye. It’s the big box of memories whose lid refuses to break or close. It’s holding on and letting go. It’s the scariest dream and the prettiest nightmare, flying and falling at the same time. It’s having all the air around you sucked out and seeing your world build up and fall apart and being too smitten and too helpless to catch the broken pieces. It’s the right person at the wrong time and the wrong person at the right time and time being a wicked witch. It’s all of this, and so much more; so much more we’ll never know.

My sparse knowledge of this vast concept has led me to the conclusion, that of all the things it is and will ever be, may it never be basic. May all the mundane be on one side and the royal mess of your love affair stand with its coy pride. May all the myths of shooting stars and white horses and fiery princesses and knights in shining armours see the light of reality. May it sustain your senses and drive you insane. Because if love wasn't simple and complex and magic and madness, what else would it be? Amen, Amen, Amen.

Carrie Bradshaw and my bucket of ice cream await.

Till I write again,

Creative Insanity.

An Ode to my Superwoman

The first week of January. The air is so cold the blanket is frozen to my feet. I hear the clattering of the pan and mom humming her favourite Rabindra Sangeet, while moving around like a ninja. I’ve always believed that my mom is a secret agent working for The Institute of Inbuilt Magnificence. She can chop onions, fluff the cushions and give you life lessons all in one twirl. I guess it was she who took the train to Hogwarts and learnt all the kickass witchcraft. I groggily walk up to her with a half-yawn, and she smiles at me as she serves dad his breakfast. She doesn’t have time to comb, but she has time to smile. The hum is now replaced with small, soft breaths, her arthritic knees begging her to take a break. She doesn’t listen to them. She doesn’t listen to anyone. Dad leaves for work and mom waves him goodbye from the balcony, waiting till he takes the turn at the corner.

Just when I feel she’s about to run back inside her den again, I stop her. After a little struggle, she finally agrees to take that breath latched somewhere between stress and responsibilities. I hear her laugh and gasp at the whereabouts of some dramatic Indian woman on screen, as I settle our cups on the table. The next hour goes by me trying to help her escape through gossip and giggles, and before I know it, the ninja goes back to duty.

Wash, clean, cook.

“Sweetie, come have lunch.”

Dust, scrub, arrange.

“… Going to the grocery store.”

Calls, bills, cold tea.

“No no, it isn’t much. I’ll manage.”

Sprint, sweat, smile.

“Beta, dinner is ready.”

Another day comes to an end. An extraordinary woman’s ordinary day. Her warm halo and invisible cape retire for the night. I see her sitting still for a change, either plotting world domination or deciding what to cook for tomorrow’s dinner. I guess I’ll never know. For that moment, I let her stay in her little bubble. Just, let her be; before she resumes being a wife and a mother and a superwoman. My superwoman.