Bolpur Blues : Episode 12

I was drunk in love, tripping on fingers entangled together, drugged on kisses, sloshed in lust.

So, when in no time came our time to part, though temporarily, at least that's what it looked like, we were hardly ready.

It was pre-Christmas and I had to leave for home to attend my family, he had to leave for his home, too. And our homes, funnily were miles apart.

I usually used to bring this in our conversations how our families will never even be able to communicate with each other if they were to talk only in their own dialect.

And he’d reply, it had never been about the conversations, it has always been about the silence.

And I’d frown at him for disturbingly philosophical all the time, which he would dilute in no time with his smile.


Anyway, it was Christmas, and we were parting in Santiniketan railway station. He came to see me off, and I stood infront of the door, while he stood on the platform.

Weirdly, when the train picked up speed, we both mouthed 'I love you' at the same time.
And then he started getting tiny with distance and home started getting closer.


I didn't know if it implied something but few days from then, we were not two people in love, anymore.
Long distance seemed to not work for us.

What started with missing each other took terrible forms by the end of the night. What used to be healthy debates earlier became arguments in loud voices. What used to be making fun of each other became taken as offence. What used to look like love was outgrown by insecurities.

And I clearly remember my intuition whispering me to let go; to cut the string than stretch it and let it tear itself.

But I was still in the hangover of that short-lived, raw, form of love.
Phonecalls started getting less, texts started getting shorter, video calls became extinct, and it was hurting no less.


And I thought to myself that maybe this was it, this love was short lived but it wasn't like it was not love.

We had just spent eighteen days together and felt so strongly, and I knew I had to get it off my chest.

That's when I took to blogging, because when I used to be a kid and I used to be sad, my father used to pat my back and tell me, 'write it out’.

And I realized, more than a lover, I have a story and a muse.

To be continued...

Bolpur Blues : Episode 11

Winter Dream
to ... Her

"One winter, we'll take a train, a little rose-colored car
Upholstered blue.
We'll be so comfortable. A nest
Of wild kisses awaits in every cushioned corner.
You'll close your eyes to shadows
Grimacing through windows
This belligerent nocturnal realm, inhabited
By black demons and black wolves.
Then you'll feel a tickle on your cheek ...
A little kiss like a crazed spider
Fleeing down your neck ...
Bending your head backwards, you'll say: "Get it!"
-And we'll take our time finding the beast
-While it roams ..."

-Rimbaud


The quirk had escorted me to my rented home in Santiniketan some fifteen minutes back, and I was just standing in my bare essentials, midday through changing my clothes, when he called me to read to me this poem.

I had no chance of telling him that in no poetic dimension is this a good time to listen to a poem, because he heard my 'Hello’ and got going.

Anyway, things have always been like this with the quirk, clearly wrong timed and too sweet to pause him in between to make him conscious of this crisis.

I let him complete his poem;

“Do you understand I was in the middle of something when you called?”

“You have to read Rimbaud. His poems are too beautiful to be true.” He was too excited again.

“I will. Ofcourse. But I'd like some clothes on me when I read him”, I laughed.

“Poems have no rules that they are to be read only wearing clothes”

“God you're impossible”, I was still laughing.

“You know what is the success of a poem?”

“What?” I could not wait for him to come up with another of his genius answers.

“It must make you feel naked, your feelings bare infront of it, emotions outbursting, and it must hit you where it needs the most healing.”

I didn't say anything. I had nothing so say. I could not come up with something in reply to that. I smiled across the phone and I guess he understood.

He stayed silent for some seconds and said good night.

For the rest of the night, I read that poem over and over again and fell asleep.


I woke up from a knock on my door at around 11 in the morning.
For someone like me for whom no morning exists, it was little too early, that too in winter.

I opened the door and there was the quirk standing, with ice cream and lunch.

He smiled sheepishly, “Thought you might be hungry.”

“Ice cream in winter?” I exclaimed.

“I read about that last night. Actually it is quite healthy to have ice cream in winter. Don't worry I'll have it with you. In that case, if something happens, we both will get sick.”

“I don't like sharing my ice cream” I rubbed my eyes.

The quirk smiled,  kissed my forehead and came inside.

I spent the rest of the afternoon lying, with my head on his belly, reading Rimbaud and listening to old Hindi songs with both of us singing along.

To be continued...