Bolpur Blues: Episode 10

Shivering under the blanket, and with some Indie-pop band playing in the background, we were sipping cheap whiskey that one of our friends managed to arrange.

We were pretty broke by that time of the month, and had to rely on beg, borrow, steal ways to quench our thirst for alcohol and get our bodies warmed up in that cold.

It had been just a week away since the whole scene of love coming out announced happened, and we were pretty much a couple by then.

Doing the usual things that lovers are expected to do stereotypically- holding hands, eating out together, roaming around the bushes at night talking of stars, exchanging music, having our inside jokes, having our ‘our times’ behind closed doors; the absolute kind that people and friends get irritated with.

But I was in the other side of the river then, and on my side, all the grass was damn bright green.

Anyway coming back to cheap whiskey.

You get know absolutely after five pegs whether a Malayali is really into you or not, because precisely all the Malayalis I’ve drank with, couldn’t remember their name after the fifth peg.

The quirk was no exception. Can’t drink but will drink. So there we were, in a winter that was some 5 degrees down in the mercury level and we were number of pegs down; that amount that makes you forget to count.

So there we were, out on the streets of Bolpur, at around 3 at night, to get our spines screwed and chilled in the winter. Drunk mind usually does not care of consequences or reasons, and we don’t know why me and the quirk lingered around a house, that would look to normal eyes as plainly haunted.

Devil’s hour, and me and the quirk climbed the dividing wall of the house and jumped inside its fence with the sole motive to inspect the interiors of the house, because our drunk minds had decided to buy that house jointly.

Don’t question me of reasons here.

Anyway we went inside, it was pitch dark, and by that time we had forgotten where we were.

After the time, when our eyes have got seasoned with the darkness and were seeing things, out of focus though, we saw a well, went beside and sat on its platform.

The quirk pointed to me stars and my mouth gaped as I was inhaling the chill and the sky.

And there, right there, below the stars, illegally inside a haunted house porch, with so much alcohol in the system that we could hardly see each other, we made love.

To be continued...

Bolpur Blues: Episode 9

‘How do you say lover in Bengali?’ he was onto Google.

I woke up, still trying to process what he had just said.

Messed up hair, eyes squinting from the lean ray of sunlight that somehow managed his way inside through a hole in the window and was falling right on my face.

‘How do you say what?’

‘Lover. Teach me the pronunciation.’ He was smiling, puffed up eyes and a book in one hand.

‘What is that book?’ I felt it to be so bizarre that he had an English book in his one hand, and the other hand was on Google to learn Bengali.

‘In praise of love.’ He held the book close to his chest and said, ‘It’s my favorite Philosophy book; it’s yours from now.’

It took me sometime to process the whole thing- I mean I was just up from sleep, still was staring at him from my left eye and struggling to open the right, and there he was asking me the pronunciation of Bengali words, and also giving away his favorite book; all at the same time.

He read my confused stare, ‘Sorry I get little weird when I’m in love.’

‘You are in love? What?’ I was still considering how someone could say something so huge, so easily.

‘You aren’t?’ His hand with the book was still outstretched towards me.

‘I don’t know. It’s too early, isn’t it?’ I realized a moment later, I had said the stupidest thing possible.

‘You must be hungry. I’ll make you an omlette?’ He smiled and jumped to another topic immediately.

And I realized, love can wait till hunger gets done.

For the next one hour, he made me a breakfast, while I read the first few pages of his favorite book.

‘How did I end up here last night?’ I was gorging on bread and eggs.

‘You came, we kissed. And it was very cold so we had rum, and you fell asleep here. You look beautiful when you sleep.’ He was smoothing the butter on the bread.

‘You were watching me when I was sleeping? Dude, that’s creepy!’ I laughed and he joined in.

For the rest of the afternoon, we digested more breakfast as laziness didn’t let us lift our butts and go for lunch, and I read more pages of that book while he listened to music, often whistling my favorite song to get a glance from me off the book, a shared smile, and getting back to what we were doing.

The evening dropped down, with the typical winter chill.

And I remember walking back home, with the biggest smile stretching my lips to the point my muscles allow.

To be continued...

Bolpur Blues: Episode 8

The night closed on us; the quirk, me, Cohen and two pair of lips occasionally and unreasonably touching at times.

None of us knew why we had the sudden urge to just stare at each other and kiss, but the evening returning birds’ chirps, the dusk coming down, and the trees swinging in the rhythm of the music, had some effect; It had to have some effect.

‘Can I trust you with staying here?’ I cleared my throat, lighting a cigarette.

‘Let’s do the bond thing that people does when they are not sure?’ He smiled, still holding my left hand softly within his.

I broke the embrace and found two little paper pieces. I wrote in both of them how he has to stay back, or else he owes me compensation for all the kisses we had for the day.

He signed in both and kept the piece of paper inside his wallet, in the same counter where he kept his parent’s picture.

‘This paper is as important as them now, I guess.’ He smiled while staring at his parents, and putting the paper inside the space he made in his wallet.

I didn’t find words to give a reply to that; all I knew we have started off something that would go on for long.

Apparently we ran out of smokes, and I needed a tea.

So we got out, for both.

The nearby market is something that has always made me feel good. People, lights; no matter how less they were, were still better than the cruel dark lanes on just the opposite side. And perhaps the best part of it was, it was halogen-lit mostly; the yellow hue is always good after a long day of songs and kisses.

Warmth and winter are sinfully done seductive juxtapositions.

We had a long dark lane to cover, and midway I couldn’t feel my hands already.

No matter how beautiful the winter in Santiniketan is, it is also a little cruel to people at night; when you don’t have the warmth of the sun to back you up.

He had a rugged coat on his body, and I was rubbing my hands to help with the warmth thing.

He stared at the sky, and pointed to me the plethora of stars. I pointed to him the North Star bright in the star-crowded sky, and suddenly, he took my right hand and put it inside his coat’s pocket.

‘That will help your hands stay warm, at least till you get the tea in your system.’ He said, still looking at the stars and walking.

I stared at him, my mind blank, while he stared up at nature’s dotted graphiti.

I asked him, irrelevant, wrongly placed. ’What are we?’

He took some time. ‘Lovers?’

Neither of us spoke for a while.

To be continued...

Bolpur Blues: Episode 7

Episode 6.

The next day, I dumped classes.

Well, when you don’t get enough breakfast, the lunch is flushable, and dinner, well you better wash your hands with it rather getting it down your system, you mostly wake up weak, tired and cranky. I had headaches half of the days to up my cranky-meter.

So, most of the first classes I’d laugh a little about, turn my alarm back to off and sleep through in my uncomfortable bad pillows.

Anyway coming back to my awaken part of the day, we got a little weed again, and suddenly me and my Malayalam partner were very ecstatic about getting our butts high in the same place where we got screwed up the earlier time.

Also, it was winter, the sun shone sweet, the shades seemed lucrative, and the weed looked green.

So, there were we, four of us, three Malayalis, including the quirk and another guy my beat partner dragged with him, and me.

We went there and sat in the shade of a wall that was injected with red concrete flowers; that, with the shade, also gave us a beautiful view.

I was making us joints, while the quirk came around and sat beside.

“You like Cohen?” he asked fidgeting with his phone.

“I’m just a station on your way. I know I’m not your lover.” I sang, copying the typical Cohen baritone.

“Amazing! I love that man.” Suddenly he was gleaming.

“Well, you got some real competition here.” I winked.

After that, some hours from then, we kept listening to Cohen songs back to back, while the rest of the two Malayalis got high on weed, and me and the quirk on the lyrics in baritone.

We were walking back to our houses, when the quirk said, “There’s some whiskey in my house. You want to come over?”

I couldn’t resist the offer of having whiskey and listening to music with someone whose taste matched unabashedly with mine.

Winter, afternoon, whiskey, music; there’s not much you can do to not say a yes!

I went, and well, we didn’t drink.

We just sat on the ground, with nothing under our butts expect the cold floor, in the front porch, and kept listening to songs; his choice and my choice, alternately.

And he suddenly said, “Actually I want to kiss you. Can I?”

“Well, when did you drink the whiskey? I didn’t see.” Litmus test. All girls do it.

“Not the whiskey speaking. I’m sober and genuinely asking. Can I?”

And with all that amber-lit sky, the perfect afternoon, the music, it had some effect on me.

“Yes, but on a condition.” I said.

“And what’s that?”

“Will you stay here with me for the next one year?”

“Done. Now may I?”

What happened after that is what I remember by the best kiss I’ve had with anyone till date.

So much so, that the panting after the kiss left us on the floor and with the most comforting laugh ever!

“I really like you.” He was in sweats.

“That came fast.” I wasn’t expecting that.

“You knew it, all this time, I know.”

I laughed instead of a reply, and we kissed again.

To be continued…

Bolpur Blues: Episode 6

Episode 5.

I slept dead that night; dead from all the walks, calm from all the anticipation satisfied.

The next day was special for two reasons;

My quirk has come back, with all the weirdness I was looking forward to get entertained with.

And also, one of my favorite actor’s movie’s first trailer was releasing by 11am.

Here in Bolpur, you don’t have much to look forward to; hence you resort to things like your dog’s video call, your actor’s trailer launch, someone to do something stupid so the whole neighborhood can gossip about it for a week.

All of this typical not-asked-for lifestyle was happening to me for the first time, and needless to say, I didn’t like.

Anyway, I woke up around 10 in the morning with a phone call from the quirk, about going for lunch together.

After lunch, we sat under a shade in Kala Bhavan for a smoke.

Wintry afternoon and a tourist-crowded Kala Bhavan is an eternal love saga you’d know if you are a regular in Santiniketan.

We sat, smoked in counters, and gossiped about the tourists that believed everything the guide said, was ecstatic touching a leaf that the guide linked something with Rabindranath Tagore, but we all knew they were cleverly made lies to fool them.

Anyway, the afternoon was going smooth, in smokes, and in conversations, mostly laughing at people.

And suddenly he said, “Can you sing for me?”

“You need a song to digest the bad lunch?” I laughed and tried to shrug that off.

“Just sing, please?”

“Two lines only, Okay? I don’t want to wake up all the dogs here from their siesta.”

I sang the first two lines of a Dylan song, and in the middle of that, he held my hand.

Few minutes from then, he kept holding my hand, and that started getting a little uncomfortable, after a kid from the tourist family started staring at us.

I removed my hand, and we started walking towards the canteen of Kala Bhavan.

And just then, just when he was about to pass a tree, a thin line of waterfall happened from the leaves above.

Apparently, he missed a monkey piss by a fraction of inch.

That gave us our dull life to laugh upon for the next two days, and occasional embarrassment from his side.

Days started going on, more meals started getting done together with him, and life in Santiniketan started being a little less boring.

One afternoon I wanted to show him the place, which has been my evening regular for the last two months. So my Malayalam beat partner and me, we took him to that stretch of outgrown forest behind the theatre house.

Golden hour and that place, with all the silence offered, it catalyzed more conversations.

I don’t really remember what we three talked about, but I thoroughly remember the eyes being filled to brim with passion, and happiness.

The night closed on us, like the days here usually do.

Three drunken pairs of legs, drunk from all the golden hour engulped, we came back for a cup of tea to the marketplace.

Life started getting better here, but well, it was just all about the beginning.

To be continued...

Dear muse

Dear hills,

Writing to you while I am sandwiched between three unknown people who looks like they belong from your territory.
Writing to you while I stoop forward in the last seat of the jeep as it slips down in one of those snaky curves of your green lush body.

I see you taking houses butt-way sticking out from your pine forests. I travel through you as people dig through your skin and put cement and sand to seal that pattern. And you stand, protest-less, mute, observant, still peaceful, still a mother.

I keep coming back, like a little kid does, to the garden where he finds his favourite flower. I keep coming back, guilty to wipe out the last drop of peace you have to offer; but then you dont have a last drop. You keep refilling.

I keep coming back like a voyeur to see how you make love to the clouds, all through the day, from the first drop of sunlight that dilutes all over the sky till the darkness of the night kills the last bit of the sun.

And then there are people who choose you, over advantages of a city, over privileges of an easier life.
I see them choosing you over everything that every other textures of the nature can offer.

And I feel more guilty.

I keep coming back and you keep smiling, arms out with your rhododendrons, mosses out from rocks untouched, valleys that are slowly turning into lifeless cemented snakes.
You breathe into me calm as birds return back trading through a golden sky changing leads, as squirrels carry nuts into one of their holes in your soil that they call home.

People call you an escape. People call you a momentary vacation. People choose you selfishly only when they want to breathe little different from their luxury-spread sofas back in the plains, and I choose you as homecoming.

I choose you because you make me cry just by being there, just by groping the sun back into your curves, just by showing me that after one uphill road of sweat comes another easy downhill of leisure, just by whispering into me oxygen when all my mind can think of is violence.

I have so much more to write to you but just then the jeep passes dangerously almost-hanging the cliff's side, and I see clouds possessively trying to hide your curves with it's shadows from the sun, which shines selectively through the clouds into your valleys.
I have so much more to tell you but just then it begins to rain and I see every bit of you celebrating the showers.
I have so much more to say but your beauty numbs me, and this numbness is so addictive, I keep coming back.

And finally I realise why 'hill' and 'heal' sound similar.


From someone,
who drinks shamelessly from your valleys, the elixir of peace;
a drunkard.

Little aesthetics please?

Mine's been nearly a year in Bolpur. People keep saying there is something very addictive in it's air; once you're here you keep coming back hopelessly for another little bit of dosage.

Well, I can't tell you anything about that. Almost a whole year here and it's been not addiction for me, but a habit, like you brush your teeth in mornings, and let me tell you, some days I simply hate brushing my teeth.
Anyway, the only thing I like here is how disturbingly quiet it is, and how disturbing silence can be for nights, in a place that merged solitude and loneliness for me.

I have a lover here, and a bicycle that I took, borrowed. So, afternoons of cloudy days, or days when the sun is just little less hard on us, we ride away slowly to places undiscovered.

The lover is always the one doing all the labour of circling his feet on the paddle, managing the balance, and also carrying this weight behind him who is mostly shifting in her seat screwing his balance scheme, asking bizarre questions; answering which demands some mind off the street and into contemplation.

I usually have nothing to do, except gazing at slowly fading landscapes, people, trees that hug the sky and lush greenary.
This whole idea of writing came to me when my lover told himself in half consciousness of appreciating a golden-hour lit stretch of green beauty, that how perfect a village it is.

And it occured to me, that indeed it is; a perfect village. Sad that it forcibly keeps trying to change to a town. Imagine the failure a poet would get if he tries his hand at cricket!

And for the most of the journey, I kept looking at how perfect it is. How perfect the sunset looks with the green farmlands in off-focus, and how awkward the smoke looks that is puked out by a nearby factory that the village could do without.

I pass mud houses set in the middle of the stretches randomly, with perfect petite black windows, mostly closed. And when they are open, they let in to the visuals of dark walls with marks left by raindrops that ran down through leaks in the terrace, Hindu devotee pictures in ornamental attire whose brightness has been smudged by regular smoke from incense sticks, polythene bags randomly hanged from hooks on the wall.

I keep passing, and the sky grows darker.

By the time I reach the nearby market, each shops have electrical lamps put up, and I wonder how aesthetically correct it would have been if they had fire-lit lamps put out hanged. How aesthetically soothing it could have been if the perfect evening had a perfect halogen flavour to it!

How perfect it could have been it the perfect village would not have tried to be something that wipes away the remaining beauty from it?!

Ennroute- who cares?

Enroute who cares?

As i write this I am sandwiched between three other passengers. Occasional gust of wind I am looking forward to, pungent washroom odour dipped in human sweat, conversations, chaos hitting the senses as I write.
Enroute? Who cares.

I have forever liked train journeys not because it lead somewhere, not because it leads to new acquaintances, but because I have lived most of my childhood in them; upper berths, vendor screams, blue draped seats, and stories.
My father's job gave me wonderful things. He mostly used to stay away, sometimes distant district of my own state, sometimes elsewhere.
All the memories I have of childhood, I usually have of travelling, sometimes Jharkhand, sometimes Bihar border, and the memories are always this faded sky blue coated eastern railway-isque. My father's job took my father away mostly, and gave me trains.
I don't know how to say which one is better now.

Anyway, coming back to this, I didn't get a window seat, so I'm mostly peeping from a mid-aged man's shoulder to see the passing lights of the night. The moon is bright up there somewhere, which I assume because the silhouettes are too bright. The train pass and so do I, and the silhouettes backwards. I keep looking.
I usually find more beauty in the soothing night visuals than the screaming morning light. They don't come with the obligation to be seen by you.
Also you put in a little bit of effort to see the night sky; and what is beauty if its not yearned for?

The train in its own mood, and I in mine, we travel.
Enroute? Who cares?

Bolpur Blues: Episode 5

Episode 4 is here!

Durga puja went away in a jiffy. When I try to recall the one long month, I see passing images of lights, friends, food, and colors.

Happy month!

But somehow, the quirk and me, we would always keep in touch. Also, on one of those nights of midnight texts and laughter-inducing banters, I gave him a nick name, which later I found out, means ‘bacteria that causes food poisoning’.

Weird happens to be my forte too!

Also, we got so happy, just by conversations, he later started calling me his ‘happy hormone’.

I returned back to Santiniketan after a month, but he didn’t.

We would keep calling, each other, usually in the dead of the night, just to talk about how the day went.

Nyctophilliacs in synchronization.

One month went away, and one day me and my Kala Bhavana beat partner, who introduced me to the quirk in the first place, we got some weed for us.

Enough for four joints, and more than enough to get us shit high!

There is this place, which happens to top my little list of the places I find solace in Santiniketan; behind one of the theater houses, a stretch of land, used by students of painting and sculpture for practice.

A land, surrounded by abstract sculpture, structures designed for people to sit, and a half-broken wall, injected with concrete flowers, which was earlier a stage used by performance arts’ students for presentation.

Me and my Malayalam partner, we sat there, rolled us four joints, and had all of them together.

In some time we got to realize the sun was going down, and we could hardly get up.

All dangerous places are seductive, they say.

This place had no light to guide us in the dark, and it was a damn long walk to the main road through what you would call a overgrown forest.

I got up after giving efforts to my head and my legs for almost fifteen minutes.

The sky was putting out his last bit of light, when we two high people, unable to grab anything that was happening, walked to the faint source of the light; streetlamp of the main road that was visible from there.

After walking for what looked like a mile, since weed messed up our timeline too bad, I realized my partner was not beside me anymore.

May be I freaked out, maybe I tried to find my phone which I couldn’t, the last memory I have is me trying to open the gate to my house, where I hurt my palm badly. I felt no pain then, only after I was back to my senses, I saw the blood clot.

At around 9 pm, I woke up in my bed, by a phone call. The quirk!

“Hey, I booked my tickets. My train’s tomorrow.” The cheerful voice and I could imagine that big smile which is his patent.

“So in three days, you are going to be here?” I was so happy.

“Yes. Just three more days. Will you come to the train station when I reach?”

“Can’t wait to hug you a welcome.” I cut the call, and hummed a little happy song.

In three days, he was back.

Struggling with his two huge luggage, came out of the platform, searching. I was standing right in front.

I hugged him a welcome, and we started walking.

Station happens to be a half an hour walk from the place where we wanted to go, and only midway, we came to realize, we were so busy in conversations, that we forgot to get ourselves a transport. Apparently he has shifted to a place, which was in my locality; I mean just the lane almost opposite to mine.

We came to his place, dusted things, made him settle down, and he came to drop me off to my place.

That goodbye for just the night, I tell you, was the most confusing one.

I wanted to shake his hands, and he came closer for a hug.

Finally, we laughed and settled for the hug.

To be continued…

Bolpur Blues: Episode 4

Bolpur Blues: Episode1

Bolpur Blues: Episode 2

Bolpur Blues: Episode 3

Songs, music, walks, conversations, happened to increase in the weeks that followed.

My routine for the day remained the same. Wake up early, text my virtual boyfriend, go for classes, come back, go out on a tea date with myself; only the thing that severely changed was, this time I would keep on bumping into the quirk, almost every day.

One day, I returned from my classes a little early, around afternoon. Since I had nothing to do till the sun goes down and the world creates the perfect ambience for a date with myself, I lazily kept scrolling my Facebook newsfeed, and came to realize, my boyfriend has gone off Facebook.

I tried Whatsapp and that account was deleted.

I tried his phone and that was switched off.

For natural reasons, that upset me. I kept calling that number once every ten minutes, only to listen to the same robotic lady telling me the same words.

Upset, heartbroken and worried, I decided to go out, have a cup of tea, and think upon what can be done.

Tea date with myself done, I lingered around the marketplace that day.

Dark, silent lanes were only accelerating the worries.

In one of those noisy, tourist-crowded shops in the marketplace, I met the quirk, checking out a burnt clay bangle.

I went beside him and asked, “For your mother?”

He turned around, little distracted by my words from his deep inspection of jewellery, “No, for myself.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, “Do men in Kerala wear bangles?”

I expected him to get angry, but he seemed equally amused, “No no, but I want to wear. See, even the color goes with my skin tone.”

My mind kept whispering, ‘Say hello to the quirk!’

He not only bought the bangle and made me bargain with the shopkeeper, but also posted a picture wearing it on his Facebook profile.

This time, more than amused, I was amazed at the straightforwardness of a person, in public.

Anyway, days went by, my virtual boyfriend stayed lost and gone, and came Mahalaya, and that only meant, Durga puja was just a week away.

Santiniketan organizes a fair on Mahalaya, where each department of my University puts up stalls. Ours had newspapers to sell.

I was hardly interested in the fair, but in the fact that the next day I was going home; for one long month.

After roaming in the fair for some time, and getting choked by the amount of crowd in a small place, I came back to the ramshackle halogen-lit tea stall for a late evening tea.

The quirk with another friend, walked in almost then.

After rounds of lemon tea, horribly made though, and appreciation of the vintage flavor of the shop, we were out to walk back home.

On the way I told him, “I’m going back home tomorrow.”

“Oh. I’ll go too.”

“When? Go home. Anyway, the holidays are on, and there is nothing to do here.” I replied.

“I’ll go. Maybe this week. Just little lazy to book my ticket.” He smiled back.

I returned the smile and the bent to my lane came.

“Okay then, see you soon?” He smiled and held my hand.

I faintly pressed his hand before letting go, “Very soon.”

He smiled and went his way, and I mine.

The next episode is up here!

To be continued…