The child

'Such a beautiful day...'
Parama said, 'why not we go for a walk?'
'Now?'
Alokananda was trying to edit a passage.
The report would go to the editor's desk by nine. From there to the composer's.

'Why not?'
Parama asked.

'If Rajdeep da finds you loitering around like this, you know...'
Alokananda said, suppressing her smile.
'Who's that Rajdeep? I'm slave to none!'
Parama said, smiling.

It was only two forty.
A mild breeze was blowing.
It had the smell of flowers and a bit of moisture.
'It might be raining somewhere...'
Parama thought the first thing she and Alokananda came down to the small park opposite their office. Break time.
The makeshift stalls of food and chai by the boundary of the park were having brisk business.

'For the last few days noticed you are in the most blessed state...always smiling...doing all works in time...not sitting on papers and not keeping them piled up...clearing them as soon as they come...what?'
Alokananda asked Parama.
Parama looked at her.
'Nothing... Just it is such a fine weather...'
'Na...not letting go of you only by those words...'
She pulled Parama.
'What?'
Parama danced her brows.
'Tell me, will you?'
Alokananda asked, this time pleading.
'Want to know?'
Parama asked.
'Yes!'
Alokananda couldn't suppress her excitement.
'I am in Love...'
Parama replied bluntly.
Without any excitement.
Not even dancing her eyebrows.
Not even smiling.
'Serious?'
Alokananda couldn't close her mouth.
Parama, the girl she had known for the last five years, never even going out with any boyfriend, thinking them to be most childish, jealous, arrogant and silly, had fallen in love!
'Don't joke with me...I know how you only a few days back slapped a boy who just tried to offer you a rose...'
Alokananda said, looking confused.
Parama was singing.
Usually she sings English songs.
Alokananda had heard Bob Dylan to Bob Marley, courtesy Parama.
But Bengali songs...
Only Rabindra sangeet.
But this song though Bengali had a tribal tune.
'Fallen in love with a tribal guy or what?'
Alokananda poked Parama, using her right hand.
Parama was not listening to Alokananda's words.
She had bought kachuris from a shop and presently dividing them into two equal proportions, numerically, counting them.

'Lunch break...stuff your stomach first...God knows when we would be out of office this evening...'
Parama gave some kachuris and potato curry held in a small plastic container.
They had sat down on a bench at the park.

'Ok...but tell me, who that lucky guy is?'

'None!'
Parama said, munching kachuris.
'Come'n! Do you think I am a fool? Can't I see it in your face?'
'Really? Does it show?really?'
Parama became thoughtful.
'Of course! When I met your Mriganko da, I didn't sleep for a whole night!'
'Ha ha ha...'
Parama guffawed.

'Now tell me...please...'
'Well, I am in love with Love...'
Parama said.
'Love with Love? What kind of puzzle is this?'
Alokananda asked, her eyes patting.
'Well...look...now that we are sitting here and having our lunch...in this park...ain't it beautiful?'
'Yes...'
'Then?'
'Then what?'
'Then we go to the office and edit stuff and compose things...you call Mriganko da, asking about Shiblu, in the midst of your terrible business,ain't that beautiful?'
Parama asked, looking at Alokananda, with poignant eyes.
'Yes...that's we all do...I mean you call your dad and ask whether he had taken his lunch...don't you?'

Alokananda was confused.
'Okay...then you look at yourself at the mirror and don't you say you are beautiful?'
'I dress up standing there...but don't say that...'
'Okay...don't you like it when a cuckoo sings or parrot talks back?'
'Yes...'
'My dear Alokananda di, that is love!'
Parama pinched Alokananda's cheek.
'Tui na...pagli ekta...'(you are ...such a mad...)
Alokananda giggled, almost like a child.

Tied

It had snowed.
It had snowed last night.
The cold air had made a sweep through ribs. Debosmita was trying to put the kettle out of the oven. She held kettle by her bare hands. The warm feel replenished her cold palms. Another morn at the hills. She looked out of the casement. White carpet of snow flakes had been laid out. The trees looked like sculpted figures.
Simran had said she would drop her son here, before she would go out to fetch firewood from the forest.

Simran, a woman of her own.
Working morn till night.
Taking care of her son, her husband, her father in law, her family.
The more Debosmita looks at Simran, the more she stays amazed and amused.
What amazes Debosmita is the gut of Simran. Losing her father, mother and her family in avalanche, she had not gone mourning.
Debosmita still remembers the first day she met Simran, after joining this school at this remote place.
She came to her house, one sunny morning, with a bag full of firewood.
A woman with a face , dimples forming at her cheeks.
'Want to store up firewood?'
She had asked her.
Debosmita, after losing Aniruddha, took up this job at this place, deliberately for she wanted to break free from the memories of Aniruddha at the town where she had lived for six years.

'But it is summer almost...the trees are blooming, the temperature is so lovely, birds are singing...'
Debosmita had said.

Simran laughed.
Her dimples on cheeks went deeper.
'Apko nehi pata...'
(You can never know...)
Simran had said, as she dropped down the heavy sack of wood from her shoulder.
Debosmita had noticed how the rope that helped the sack to hang from her two upper arms, had cut through her pirhan.
A red pirhan with floral embroidery.
Only the shoulders were patched and ragged.
The rope had made those patches torn, making opening through which her bare shoulders could be seen. Blood patches grew there.
'Why?'
Debosmita had asked Simran then.
'I saw the squirrels digging grounds...it might snow...the rodents are also going into the ground...it might snow...'

'Oh!'
Debosmita had asked Simran to take the sack straight to the living.
'Came here alone? Joined that school at the hilltop? That missionary one?'
Simran had asked.
Her face lit up.
'Yes...just one month so far...'

'Yes, heard from Farhan...'
'Farhan?'
'My son...he reads in that school and he told me about you...'
Simran had said.

From then on Debosmita and Simran had become friends.
In this place, Debosmita had found a friend in Simran.
Every day, as early as seven in the morning, Simran would arrive.
She would bring flowers from her garden.
Sometimes would also arrive with her home cooked foods, a curry of turnip or a bowl of lentils.
Debosmita would listen from her the stories of the land, the backlash of insurgency, the stories of families ruined forever and so on.
In turn, Debosmita would read for her gospels from the Bible, teachings of the Quran, Aesop's fables.
Simran would listen to them, wide eyed.
Sometimes she would weep.
Like that other day she wept profusely hearing the story of 'Kabuliwallah' from Debosmita.
'Why crying?'
Debosmita had asked.
'I miss my parents...'
She had said.
Debosmita then embraced her.
'Don't cry...who lives forever?'

The tea with butter was almost ready when Debosmita heard the knocking at the gate.
Simran had come.
She looked disturbed.
'What happened?'
'Nothing...'
Simran sighed as she got indoors.
Debosmita brought her cup of tea.
Simran sipped.

'Want to listen to stories from me? Or will you tell me what happened in the town?'
Debosmita asked her, smiling.

'You know madam, you have told me so beautiful things...but they are all in books...in reality... It is not that flowery...'
Simran said, suddenly.

Debosmita was perplexed.
'Kiun?'(why?)

'Just saying...'
Simran said as she finished taking her tea.
'Will have to go today...got works...'

Debosmita also got ready.
She would have to take extracurricular classes for the children at school.

The next morning, Debosmita was again waiting for Simran.

From seven to ten she waited.
Simran didn't turn up.
'Must be busy with works...'

While going to school, she thought of taking that dingy lane where Simran lived.
Though she had never been to Simran's hut, she once heard of the place and the lane from her.

Getting directions from the boys playing on the lane, she arrived in front of a wooden hut.
It had a simple yet beautiful cane fencing.
A small garden there was there with vegetables being grown.
She knocked at the door.
Farhan opened the door.
'Oh! Madam! Andar aiyey...(come inside)'
Farhan said, a bit surprised and shy.

Debosmita found Simran lying on a cot.
There was no one else in the room.
'What happened?'
Debosmita asked.
Simran tried to sit up.
'Got fever...'
'Taken medicine?'
'No...he had gone to the medicine shop in the town...would return soon...'

Debosmita noticed Simran's right hand then.
It got swelled.
'What happened?'
'Nothing...'
Simran said.

For the next few weeks, Simran didn't come.
Debosmita also got busy with her works.

One day, at school, Farhan met her after the school broke off.

'Madam, mother had sent this for you...'
Farhan brought out a piece of string with a beautiful flower made of cotton and cloth attached to it.
'What this?'
'She told me to give it to you...a rakhi...made by her...she told me to give it to you...father didn't allow her to go to your place...he had beaten her up...and also told her that for a woman like her there was no need to get literate and to read books...'

Farhan said.
Debosmita felt a charcoal burning somewhere, deep deep inside her.
She looked at the rakhi.
'Farhan, boy, tie it up into my right hand...'
She asked him.

Jhilik's learning

'What are you doing?'
Shreoshi asked her daughter,the moment she came to the verandah of the cottage.
They had lodged themselves in this cottage. They meaning she,her daughter Jhilik, her husband Bhairab.
Bhairab being what he is, had taken his camera and went out quite early in the morning.
They were not even wakeful then.
Only she felt Bhairab taking his camera bag from the bedside table, kissing her forehead and their daughter's, and softly whispering to her ears,
'Going out for awhile, would be back before lunch...taken the cell ...'

Now it had turned eleven almost.
They had taken breakfast.
Shreoshi checked the packets of dry food and found Bhairab had taken cashews and biscuits and peas.

Finding Jhilik happily swinging her legs sitting on the verandah with her doll and singing a tune, Shreoshi felt relieved.

Not everyone is known to her here.

They had been staying here for two days last.
From here they had planned to go to another place.

'Come here, let me dress you up...'
Shreoshi said.
'Are we going somewhere?'
'Just would take a walk... till your dad comes back...'

'Called dad?'

'Yes...but couldn't be reached...might be due to lack of connectivity in these areas...'

Half an hour later they started walking.
Shreoshi heard that there is a village a few kilometres only away from the cottage where they had put up.

They started walking.
At eleven thirty the sun was still young.
Thin and sharp beams of rays were slipping through the foliage and the trees.

Jhilik was singing a John Denver which narrates the story of how sunshine on shoulders could make someone extraordinary warm and happy and how it could bring tears of joy in eyes.
Sun shine.
Such a lovely thing, specially to relish when one would walk through the forest.
Shreoshi was thinking about that as she looked at her daughter.
Walking a few paces ahead of her, swinging her hands, picking up wild blossoms, finding them as she was, on the way.

They came to a village.
Like all villages of these regions, the huts were made of timber and bamboo.
Flowers in pots or broken buckets could be seen at almost every cottage, either hanging by ropes from the roof or kept on the verandah.

At a place they found little boys and girls playing.

Jhilik stopped.
She was watching them running and giggling.

Shreoshi took her daughter's left hand into hers.
The flock of the children were running, laughing, humming.
A swarm.

Shreoshi held her daughter closer.
After all an unknown territory.

Suddenly a boy much older than the group, came with four or five boys of his age and size.
They looked excited.
The newly arrived group said something to the younger flock of children.

Shreoshi couldn't make out what they had said to each other.
But soon some more people gathered.
The children were dragged by their mothers to their huts.
The group disappeared within a few minutes.
A sudden unexpected lull.
Shreoshi couldn't understand what had happened.
'Hey! Sister, what happened?'
Shreoshi asked a woman who was dragging a boy towards home.
She had a girl tied with a cloth at her back.
The woman looked at her.
Then to her daughter.
She signalled them to follow her.
'But why?'

Shreoshi asked.
The woman pulled her by hand.
Shreoshi in turn pulled her daughter.
They hurriedly went into a hut, supposedly the home of this woman.

Even before they could realise anything a strong wind started to blow. Shreoshi felt that the cottage would be blown off as it started making creaking sounds.
The cottage with its door and window closed would have been fully dark had not there been a small taper kept hanging from a hook.
The taper was trembling too.
The boy clung to the woman and his sister was sleeping in her mother's arms, oblivious of the raging storm that shook the cottage.
The woman was gently patting her daughter and even in the howling storm, singing.
They seemed to be accustomed to the uncertainties of nature.
Jhilik had shrunk into Shreoshi's body, tightly holding her.
Her face was flushed.
Shreoshi was also very much anxious.
She was thinking of Bhairab too.
She tried calling him.
But couldn't get any connection.
'naturally...'
Shreoshi sighed.

She knows Bhairab being a hardcore wild life photographer, knows more survival strategies than her.
He had been to different wild terrains.
Sometimes alone even.
Still, Shreoshi couldn't fully make her mind free from anxiety.

After say, fifteen minutes the storm started receding.
The howling decimated.
The woman and her son were constantly watching Shreoshi and Jhilik.
They smiled when they saw how relieved Shreoshi and Jhilik became as soon as the storm ceased.
The woman asked her son something.
He climbed up a small ladder that was kept in the room of the cottage.
Now Shreoshi noticed that they had a separate wooden ceiling attached to the roof.
The boy brought something down.
A girdle.
The woman opened it and by her hand beckoned Jhilik towards her.
Jhilik looked at Shreoshi.
Shreoshi smiled and her let go.
Jhilik came back with a little piece of something.
It was shining even in the half darkness that plunged the room.
Shreoshi picked it.
A small statue of Lord Buddha.
Shreoshi smiled.
'But we got nothing to give you in return...'
Shreoshi said.
The woman looked at her with her smiling eyes.
She nodded her head sideways.
'Na...'

Shreoshi and Jhilik coming out of the cottage waved goodbye to the woman and the boy.
They were standing at the door.

Just then Shreoshi's cell started ringing.
'Hello! Where are you?'
'Ar bolo na...ja jhorey atkey porechilam...jai hok bhogobaner rokhkhey benchey firechi...ami ei dukhlam cottage ey ...tomra kothay?'
('Don't tell me...was stuck in such a storm...anyway, the God saved me...just returned to the cottage... Where are you people?')
Bhairab was huffing and puffing as he yelled.
'We're okay...and just two minutes...we'll be home...'
Shreoshi said.
Jhilik was wiping the tiny statuette of the Lord Buddha given to her by that woman, by the end of her frock.

Shreoshi turned back.
The woman and the boy were still standing there at the door.

'Wishing you all the goodness of life!'
Shreoshi said, flashing a smile of relief and happiness.
The boy yelled something.
It sounded like 'Ule'.

Later in the evening when Bhairab was uploading the pictures he had taken to his laptop, munching chips and fries,
Shreoshi asked him,
'Achcha...what is the meaning of ule?'
'Ule? Never heard any word like that...'
Bhairab said.
He was trying to edit and adjust the color differentials of a photo.
'I know...its Juley...meaning Welcome'
Jhilik suddenly quipped.
Both Bhairab and Shreoshi looked at Jhilik, astounded as they were.
'How come you know that?!'
Bhairab asked.
'I know...there's a girl in our school, who often says that to us the first thing we meet in the morning at school...her father is a mountaineer.'
Jhilik said while playing with her doll, quite easily, almost nonchalantly.

Rohini's Circle of Life

'We are in a vacation, aren't we?' Asked Rohini, to the sky, which looked back at her with profundity.

'Yes,' the sky answered crying with happiness,

'Yes'
Answered Rohini,

And the mountains echoed,
With their primordial innocence,
With their incorruptible silence,
With their ascetic stillness,

And Rohini felt the subtle music of the opening of petals,
Of leaves being carried by the cool cool breeze,
Of songs of toy train with children waving flags,
Of deodars and pines and rhododendrons turning green,

'We are all the offsprings of the Omniscient,
Only having a sojourn to this place,
A perfect vacation'

The Sherpa who was sitting on a cliff,
said that, not looking at Rohini,
But looking at the mountains,

'We worship them...
Those mountains
For they speak not
But they are
the Truth of the Beauty'

The man with frostbites on his wrinkled face
Which had the knowing of the terrain
Beautifully engraved upon,
By the sun, the wind and the ice,
Muttered,

Rohini knew she had found
What she searched for,

Poetry of the silence
And its agelessness,

Its Circle of Life.

Rohini started singing
Loving her life,
And loving her very being,
And the being of the Uni~verse,
Embedded into her
By the Beauty
Of her Birth,

An Elton John.

Animesh, Arunima and the Birdman

'Wake up Animesh! There's no way we can keep us confined up here...even if it is our sojourn...our holidaying...'
Arunima pushed and pulled Animesh out of bed.
Knowing Arunima, Animesh woke up.
There must be something interesting for him to note down. Otherwise...
Arunima took Animesh to the window.
Piercing the cloudy scape there the dawn was just making a promise to the hills.
A promise of the unlimited glory of being a dawn.

Animesh started looking around.
'Can't you see?'
Arunima asked her hubby.
'Na...'
'Hey poet, too much of bacon has made you prosaic...I am going to bring your cup of tea...you, meanwhile find what I meant...'
Arunima made a pinch on his cheek and went away.
That's like Arunima.
Always giving Animesh resources to work on, to pour his heart out, to ponder, to embellish.
Animesh stood there.
The cool breeze was slowly making its way to his heart.
He could feel that.
Scent of flowers came in.
'Kanchan...'
Animesh realised.

Then down the street, cars were getting prepared for the long haul of the day.
They were being washed and wiped.
'Good morning!'
Animesh turned around.
Arunima came in.
Followed by Jimpa.
'Good morning uncle!'
Jimpa flashed a smile.
'Hey don't call me uncle...'
Animesh showed mock anger.
Jimpa started laughing.
'Tea for you two...'
Jimpa went away.
'Lovely girl, this Jimpa...wish could take her home...'
Arunima said, looking at Jimpa's going away.
Her two little braids hanging and swinging.
'These people are all lovely...wish to take the whole town home...'
Animesh said.
Arunima laughed.
'Found not yet? What I meant?'

'Kanchan flowers are there, and the cars, the hills, the forest, and the sky and the sun as usual...but...'

Animesh tried to fathom.
'Poet...you're losing out to me...see there...'
Arunima drew Animesh's attention to the  roadside bench below.

'Birdman!'

A man was feeding pigeons throwing grains. The pigeons were hopping, flying about the man.
Some of them even sat on his head and shoulders.

He just stood there.
'Your tea is getting cold...'
Arunima reminded.
'Yes...'
Animesh could see himself standing there.

'Flames.
Sacrifice.
Icarus.

You can do it.
You're a birdman'

Arunima muttered, knitting Animesh into her embrace.

Animesh thought Arunima had given him once again a candle. A candle in the cool breeze.

To burn.

To light.

A beautiful candle.

Lighting up his face, his soul, his heart, his mind, his very essence of being.
And the World, too.

Very much unlike the Birdman,
And very much like him.

Yimli's Eyes of Buddha

'Then what happened?'
Suparna asked Yimli.
Yimli was busy making noodles in her big pot.
At the counter there were two people, foreigners,backpackers.
Suparna cast a look at them.
They were talking in English though the accent was different. Guttaral.
'They might be Germans...'
Yimli's husband, Butsugen was bringing in logs upon his shoulders from the barn.

Late October, the nip in the air was catching in. The morning had a feel of cosiness.
Suparna's husband had not yet woken up.
Suparna also didn't wake him up.
She wanted to get the feel of the place all by her own.
Being an editor of a magazine on women's issues, she always remains on the lookout almost to find real life stories.

Yimli's face had a big scar. Running across from her right ear lobe end to chin.
It had almost smoothened but the scar could be visible if anyone could see her face up close.

'And then what I ran away from him...'
Yimli said.
'He didn't look for you?'

'How can a husband look for his wife if he had performed no duty to her other than those rituals related to bed time?'

Yimli was straight.
Suparna smiled.
'Brave girl you are! But how got this scar across your face?'

Hearing this query, Yimli's face suddenly lit up.
She even blushed.

Suparna was perplexed.
How can one blush and get lit up talking about a big scar on one's face?
She thought.

Yimli stirred the noodles.
They had softened.
She started pouring the noodles with a ladle upon a sieve.
Water started dripping.
Steam started coming out.

'That's how I met him...'
Yimli blushed again.
This time she looked at Butsugen.
'Tell me, tell me!'
Suparna became excited.

'I was running through the wilderness all day, not knowing where I was going... I only felt that I would have to somehow escape from that hell...the hell where he came drunk every night and beat me up if I refused to perform for him that bedtime thing... He was a beast...'
Yimli paused.
She became absentminded for awhile.
'Then?'
Suparna asked.
Prodded by her, Yimli restarted the narrative.

'Then suddenly from no where a mountain bear pounced upon me...I am not sure whether I stumbled upon it or it jumped at me...but it happened...its sharp claws I felt running through my skin, face.
I thought I would be dead. I was so much astounded and puzzled that I couldn't even shout out. Then he came with his axe and with it took a big swing and rammed it on the head of the bear, using it as a club. The bear, to my amazement, fell to the ground, as if it went dizzy.
Butsugen took me up and took me to his hut. His mother and sister were there.
They took care of me using herbs...
And...and I never left Butsugen after that...'

Yimli said.
The noodles had drained out the water.
She took a cotton cloth and put the noodles on it, spreading its strands using a flat wooden spatula.

'How much you love your Butsugen?'
Suparna asked.
'A little bit more than my own heart...'
Yimli said, flashing a cute smile.
She was blushing again.
Suparna looked at Butsugen.
He had started serving meals to those backpackers.
His face had a tinge of simplicity and fulfilment.
At least Suparna felt that, after hearing his act of saving Yimli.

'What is the meaning of Butsugen, in your language?'
Suparna asked Yimli.
'Buddha's eyes'
Yimli said as she got busy spreading the strands of noodles on the cotton cloth.
They were to be cooked soon for within half an hour the counter would have people. Tourists, travelers, backpackers, honeymooners, monks and drivers.

An ode to Love

Love, as You hath giveth unto me,
Your bless,
Keep me off from crying,

Hold me in Your arms
And make me
To fly

As flies the dove
As flies
Our faith

The very old one
And yet
Very new!

Gayatri's discovery

'That afternoon last, was the most blessed one probably I had'
Gayatri thought as she started ironing the school uniform of her daughter Ahona.
Ahona would go out at nine. She checked her school bag.
'Have you taken your exercise books? The class work copies? That Enid Blyton which you borrowed from your friend?'
Gayatri asked.
Ahona nodded.

Kaushik was checking a script.
'Ahona, have you seen my glasses?'
Kaushik asked.
'You have put them on the bedside table'
Gayatri replied.
'O yes...'
Kaushik went to fetch them.
The script of the story is to be checked.
Often while typing he loses a comma, or an exclamation or an apostrophe.

Gayatri was humming a song.
She was thinking of the afternoon last.
The cool breeze was sweeping the street then.
She was returning from office.
The sun was drawing a supranormal sketch on the sky.
She found herself immersed fully into the beauty of that moment.
She forgot to take the change from the vegetable man when she bought those vegetables.

'Mom, where's my pencil box?'

Gayatri was brought back to the reality.
'Gosh, am I drifting?'
She thought.

Kaushik had started works with the script it seemed.
A song was being played at his music system.

An instrumental piece.
A piano.
Gayatri knew it.
Richard Clayderman.

The pool car had arrived.
Gayatri took Ahona to the car.
The children were chirping there inside the car like a flock of birds.

'Have you memorised the poem aunty asked?'
'I did...should I recite?'
'I have got a new Percy Jackson!'
'What is it?'
'That Greek heroes...'
'Oh! Would you lend that to me?'
'Yes! Why not?'

The children were chirping.
Sweet.

Gayatri thought that the morning was just the continuation of the afternoon last.
Same.

Kaushik was writing something on his clipboard.

Gayatri looked at him and felt blessed.
'A work centric man... How come he got so many words in him? How come he keeps on typing and writing and pouring?
All the time writing?
Where from he gets that energy?'

Gayatri had seen him for years.
He had remained that.

Then she thought of the scene of the last afternoon.
Her being fully immersed into the beauty of an afternoon of spring.
Her waking up today and being into the same kind of feeling.

'It must be Love...'
Gayatri thought.
She started preparing the breakfast.
She started humming a song.

A song that had those words which narrates the story of finding Love as worship.
A kind of devotion.

'Love, if it is there, it comes pouring, in forms of words, in form of a song, in form of an afternoon painting a sky...'

She thought.

'Its a wonderful world...'
She heard Kaushik singing from his study.
A song.

Washington's ?
Gayatri tried to recollect the name of the singer.

'He must have completed checking the script...'
Gayatri smiled.

She thought of singing out aloud.
A song of Tagore.
Of finding Love as worship.

Stone age to ...

'Why there's so much of noise outside?'
Parvati asked her husband.
'Nothing...just some people throwing stones...'

Throwing stones at each other had become a daily ritual of sorts nowadays in the part of the locality where they live.

Now why the people throw stones at each other is often not understood by Parvati.
If she would ask her husband, who loves largely to have tea and to read, there would never be any answer forthcoming.

Even a few years ago, it was not so.
Nowadays it had become too frequent.

'Is it some kind of a game?'
Parvati would ask.
'Yes, it is like going back to the stone age...'
Once her husband said, reading as he was a story of Ruskin Bond.

'That's good or bad?'
Parvati asked, as she would usually do, taking opinions from her husband first then thinking out of her own.

'Good...'
Her husband replied.

'Why so?'

Parvati was quite bamboozled.

'For the evolution started right from there...the stone age...then there will be the other stages...'
He answered curtly and then started reading out the Ruskin Bond story on an importance of a tree.

Mustard fields are forever

Every spring afternoon when the sun would set into the mustard fields and fragrance of mustard pollens fill the air, Safa would at the dawa of their hut sit with her son Manjit.
Manjit would play with the chakki, making it go round and round while Safa would keep on grinding the spices using the pestle.
Her mother in law Parbhjot would read Granth Sahib, lying on the khatia, while Manjit's sister Mahek would press her legs.
Safa's husband, Manjot, a soldier enlisted with the Indian Army, would come home only once, during the time of Baishakhi.
The whole family waits for his arrival.
Usually Safa would be informed of his arrival by Manjot, a week earlier.
And the whole family would start thinking of something grand for him.
Parbhjot would become particularly active, almost pestering Safa to sweep the dawa clean, to stuff the gola with grains and to do some alpana on the courtyard.
The celebration of Baishakhi and the arrival of Manjot would intertwine usually.

But this year, Safa had learnt that Manjot would not be able to come for he had been sent to a special counter insurgency operation somewhere.

Still, when spring arrived this year, and the mustard fields turned golden yellow, Safa dreamt of her husband to return.
She even wrote to him via the army mail about her latent wish.
Manjot wrote her back saying he couldn't for the operation was to be carried out.

Safa had accepted that.
She had been doing that all these years.
Manjit and Mahek also had learned to accept the reality.
Parbhjot, since her husband's death, rarely shows any sign of emotion.
She wakes up early, then she bathes and puts on her white kammez and Salwar and then takes a walk to the nearby temple.
There she would spend most of the day.
At around one she would return, have her lunch and then would lie down on her khatia.
Manjit and Mahek returning from school would go out to play and would return before sunset, with dust all over them.
Safa would direct them to the well.
They would wash themselves up.

Parbhjot would then summon Mahek to read for her the Granth Sahib.
Mahek being nine years old could read better than Manjit who was six.
Sometimes, Parbhjot would read the Holy Text all by herself and would ask Mahek to press her legs.

Today, before the arrival of Manjit and Mahek, Safa went to the local post office to drop a letter to Manjot.

The post office, barely three kilometres away from their house, usually remains empty.
On her way she noticed a boy, twenty years or so, at a gathering, holding onto the microphone saying something about the disturbances that had occurred somewhere near Delhi.
The boy urged the people at the gathering to fight against those who were trying to disturb the peace and harmony of the country.
Safa's heart sank.
She deliberately lingered trying to make out what that boy was saying.
Some people had supported the idea of bringing in terrorists from another country.
Safa was baffled.
How could people of a country think of bringing in people from another country to kill countrymen?
It seemed a pretty absurd idea to her.

She prayed to God and hurried home.

Now that she was grinding the spices, and could see Manjit playing, Mahek pressing her granny's legs, she felt nothing could possibly be more beautiful than that.

Suddenly a strange thought occurred to her.
Do not those people at Delhi have children like Manjit or Mahek or an old mother like Parbhjot?

The mustard fields, she knew had gone to the neighbouring country as well.

There also mustard flowers bloom in spring.

There also pollen grains fill the air.
Safa knows that.
She definitely knows that.

Born out of Beauty

As You are born out of Beauty
And me too,
As You hath turned me to a bird
And to fly
As You are the Dove of a Bard
And someway i

Pray You come onto i
And make this world a World
Of Love
Knowing the Loop
Of that sacred Eterni~ tie.

Jhilmil's Sunday

'What have you done today? At your artwork class?' Sudeshna asked.
Her daughter Jhilmil was then looking at the tree, just where the mother daughter duo stood.
'Let's hurry up...will have to go home quick...you know I will have to cook food...and then will have to wash those clothes...heaved as they are...on the washtub...'
Sudeshna said and tried to tug her daughter. But Jhilmil was not moving. 'Look mama, there's that beautiful bird...'
'Where?'
Sudeshna asked.
'Can't you see, right there, on that tamarind tree...'
Jhilmil pulled her mother's head down to her level as she pointed to a branch of the tree which spread its branches like wings, with new leaves sprouting. The tree appeared to be dressed new. The season of spring having arrived.
Sudeshna saw the bird. It looked like a parrot, with a red beak and long tail, but its feathers were different. It had yellow feathers.
Sudeshna herself had never seen such a bird. But there were works.

'Jhilmil, I have seen that...but you know, I got so many things to do...its already ten twenty...'
Sudeshna was getting impatient.
'Maa...what you did yesterday?'
Jhilmil asked.
'Well I cooked food and then prepared you for school and then we went out...I dropped you at school...from there I went to office...come on, you know all these... There's no way we can talk like that here...come quick...'
Sudeshna pulled Jhilmil.
Jhilmil started following her mother. Upon her shoulder there was that bag...it had her art works, pencils, erasers, drawing board, brushes, color tubes.

'Mamma...today the art teacher told us to draw anything we could...and you know what I drew?'

Jhilmil asked, dropping and opening her eyelids twice in quick succession.

'What?'
Sudeshna asked.

'A flute...'

Jhilmil said.

'A flute? A mere flute? What a strange thing? But why? There are so many musical instruments...we have no flute even in our house...'
Sudeshna was amazed.

'Na...when the art teacher asked us to draw and paint, I was chewing the end of the pencil and thinking... Looking at my friend's copies I found they were all busy drawing sceneries...I also thought of doing so...but then I heard someone playing a flute down the road and going away...and I drew a flute...'

Jhilmil said.

'Really? '
Sudeshna said.

Returning home, she got busy with her works. Jhilmil finding her father Soumya busy doing some works of office on his computer, at the study, went there and sat on the sofa.
'Returned?'
Soumya asked, his eyes on the computer.
'Yes...'
Jhilmil said. She was trying to draw something on a picture of a car advert.
'It is today's paper Jhilmil...don't do that...'
Father said. He was still typing something on the key board.
Jhilmil went near his desk.
'Today is Sunday, papa...please...'
'Yes...but I need to do this work ...I will play with you after few minutes...'
Jhilmil went back to the sofa.

'Can I watch TV?'
Jhilmil asked.
'Go and ask your mother...'
Soumya said, without looking at his daughter.

Jhilmil went to the kitchen.
Sudeshna was stirring something on the kadai.
She was talking to someone over phone.
'Yes...the job would be done by tomorrow ...'
Jhilmil heard her mother saying that.

'Maa...can I watch TV?'

'Na... You got your exams from Wednesday...at the evening the dance teacher will come...have you practised the steps?'
Sudeshna said.
'Na... I mean...will I have to practise that right now?'
Jhilmil asked.

It was already eleven thirty.

'Do practise for half and hour at least and then we will see...'

Sudeshna became busy with cooking.

Soumya had to submit the project report by the afternoon, through mail.
He once went upstairs and finding Jhilmil practising her dance steps, went back to his study.

Jhilmil was not at all finding any interest in the practice. Even on a Sunday, she had to wake up early, do practise pranayam, then take music lessons from seven to eight thirty. Then from nine she got this drawing class. Now this dance practice...
She stopped for awhile and went near the window.

She thought she saw the bird and the tamarind tree.
She thought she heard someone playing a flute and going away.

An ocean of life,

How much blood can you give
To turn the ocean red

Sang once a poet,

And here we are now
But are we still liberated?

Tell me, poet, tell me,
With your hands on your breast,

Do we not still sharpen our knives
Do we not still with malice fight

Ah wish I could be that man
To stand betwixt those bayonets

And put roses down those barrels
Which only could turn the red ocean

An ocean of life, torquoise blue.

Basanti

As I wake up and me you greet
At the garden as we meet
You flash your smile
as you wake up too
With your dreams
Of mist, love and dew...

Ahalya and Mrs Thurlow

'You got to be Mrs. Thurlow then!'
Ahalya almost spoke out impromptu.
Before her stood a woman, expressionless.
She couldn't understand what Ahalya was talking about.
'Tallo? Oi namey kakukey chinina...'
(Don't know anyone by that name...)
Saying this she started winnowing the rice grains.
Ahalya looked at her.
A woman, barely thirty years of age but lost her lustre.
Continuous struggles had made signs on her face. Her hair had got dried like straw.
The heat and the dust of the terrain had made permanent botches on her limbs.

'So your sons? They went away too?'
Ahalya asked in Bengali.
'Ha...'
The woman answered curtly.
She didn't even look up.
She had works to do.
She would have to winnow the grains, put them into sacks and then would have to carry them on her head up to the rice storage unit some three miles away.
It was already two thirty.
She didn't procure anything to eat.
Last night she had put a small quantity of rice which she got from the local ration shop into an earthen pot with water.
She would've taken them and would've by now winnowed at least a few kilos more had not this stray woman from somewhere arrived with nothing else to do, like a zombie, upsetting all her works.
'What do you actually want? Are you from the government? Are you a trafficker? A peddler of something? What?'
Suddenly the woman started shouting in her own dialect.
It was partly Bengali.

Ahalya didn't understand the context.
But she sat down by the woman.
'You are tired...why not you take rest for awhile?'
She tried to say.
This made the woman even more furious.
'Who are you? What do you want?'
The woman cried out in her language which Ahalya understood using her intuition.
'I don't want anything from you...nor am I trying to do anything to you to get you out of your duress...only that, only that...no...you wouldn't possibly understand that...you would perhaps think it as my whim...a very childish whim...but only that I have lost my father a few days back and having lost him, I can't stay at home, I keep on going places...and then I saw you working in the field...I deliberately started an interaction with you...and after hearing your story of losing both sons and husband...I think I am in a much better condition...at least I have something to earn for myself and to fill my stomach with...at least I have got a better roof overhead...at least I have got better clothes than yours...at least I have got better things to get without toiling the way you are doing being half fed...and I understand I can do so little...so poor am I...'
Ahalya said, muttering.
She was losing her composure.
She was losing her words.
She then unfastened her wrist watch.
Last Sunday she bought it.
She put the wristwatch in her folded hands and tried to put it into the hands of the woman.
The woman was aghast.
'Ami nebo Ken?'
(Why should I take it?)
'Er modhdhye bomb thakti parey...'
(It could've a bomb inside it)

'I am giving it to you for you are my inspiration. Please take it.'
Ahalya said, this time tears almost dropping out of her eyes.

The woman took it, this time.
She might have seen something in Ahalya's eyes.

'Kichu khaben?'
('Want to eat something?)
That woman asked Ahalya in her language.
'No...I have got all the food for my life...till meeting you I thought I was the unluckiest person in the world...I thought I was the person who had lost everything...I thought I was a kind of Mrs.Thurlow...then I meet you...and I now know there are so many Mrs.Thurlows in the world...'
Ahalya said in Bengali.
'Shey kon gramey thakey?
(In which village does she live?)
Asked that woman.
'She lives at different parts of the world, in all ages...in all times...she is very much like you and me and probably hundreds or thousands like us...her two sons went away and her husband left her...yet she kept on doing her works...without really being bothered of what happened in her life...she just kept on working...'
Ahalya said.

The afternoon had turned into a spring almost.
Ahalya heard cuckoos singing.
The woman heard the story from Ahalya
and then shook her head.
'Ami unarey chini na...tobey bolben dekha holey...ami kharap nai...kaj Korey amar dibbi choley jai...du bela...'
(I don't know her...but if you meet her tell her...I am not in any distress...by doing works I could gather food for myself...for two halves of the day...)

Nupur's thursdays

Almost every thursday, at the verandah of their house, at around tea time, five thirty usually, there would be a grand congregation of sorts. Nupur's father, her uncle Sandipan, uncle's friends Shaswata  and Dipnarayan uncles, were the regular attendants. Her father and uncle, coming home from the shop at around 2 would take their lunch. Thursdays being 'half days', they had time to relax. They would either play chess or have a short nap, depending upon their mood. Her mother and aunt would either sew or talk about what happened to the families of the neighbourhood -the Ghoshs or Dasguptas or Sens etc till they would doze off.

But around five in the afternoon the maid would come and wake the whole house.
Nupur's mother Malabika and aunt Sritoma would wake up and go to the kitchen. Jingling sounds of their bangles could be heard coupled with the mild tinkling of cups being washed and plates being put.
Nupur coming from school at twelve thirty, would take her lunch and lying on the bed would either draw or read a story book.
But on Thursdays, she would be absolutely eager for that adda.
At around five thirty uncle would go and sit on the verandah first.
The verandah , almost three feet wide and ten and half feet long was enough for people to sit and watch the goings on.

Overlooking the street, it had always something to offer. Either a rickshaw going away or a cab stopping and purring dropping passengers or a candy seller pushing his cart at fairly quick pace.

Nupur would go and play at one corner of the verandah. Her playthings were her dolls. She would arrange dolls and with her toy kitchen stuff would also cook foods for her dolls. Sometimes she would use pieces of vegetables from the kitchen as groceries for her toy kitchen. Sometimes her mother or aunt would provide her grains of flour. With water she would make a small dough and then on her toy-stove cook it. After few minutes she would serve whatever she had cooked to her dolls.

But on Thursdays, she would not be very busy with her toy-kitchen.
Instead, she would wait for her father, uncle and his friends to gather.
For they would have an adda of sorts.
What not they talked about?

It would usually start with Nupur's father informing what the new arrivals were at their book store.Then uncle would tell which books he had read. If Shaswata uncle would turn up, he would talk about his experience at the office where a labour union trouble had broken out.
Dipnarayan uncle would be the one who would find humour in everything and his interludes were always of sheer laughter.

Father, who always appeared to be a bit grave, would even laugh at Dipnarayan uncle's wit.
Then the tea would be sent by the maid.
While sipping tea,Nupur's father would talk about the writings of an upcoming poet.
Soon uncle would talk about the rhyme variants used in a particular poem by that poet. Then Dipnarayan uncle would talk of variants being a big problem for him to tackle a mathematical equation.
Everyone would either snub Dipnarayan for being such an idiot to raise mathematical theorems in such an adda or they would laugh out.

Once Nupur heard a serious discussion on movies. Which kind of movies are superior. Hindi or Bengali or English.
Uncle and Dipnarayan were largely in favour of Bengali movies. They were naming classics one after another. Uncle being a born romantic almost lectured on the on-screen chemistry of Uttam-Suchitra. Shaswata uncle however thought Soumitra to be his choice of an actor.
Father would ask 'what about actors like Dhritiman or for that matter Dustin Hoffman or Amitabh Bachchan or Marlon Brando?'
The topic would then go to movies in Bengali, Hindi and English. Everyone would keep citing their favourite films. If 'Ashani Sanket' was one's favourite, another would say 'The Godfather' and then some would say no, nothing could possibly beat 'The sound of music'. Then invariably there would be Dipnarayan uncle suddenly breaking out singing 'Edelweiss'.
The adda would continue for hours.
The streetlights would get lighted and few more would gather. Father's friend Animesh would come straight from his office with his bag dangling on his side.
'Nupur, go and ask your mother or aunt to prepare something for Animesh uncle, he had come straight from office.'
Nupur would go to the hall where her mother and aunt would be watching a TV soap-opera /serial.
Often she would find their maid also sitting on the floor and watching the TV.
Their eyes glued to the happenings on screen. Her mother Malabika however had a strange intuition. She would turn to Nupur and would say smiling,'Yes...I know Animesh uncle has come...go and tell father that luchi and potato curry is being readied for all.'
Saying this mother would descend from the bed. Aunt would also nudge the maid so that she could also go to the kitchen.
Nupur would hurry down and inform the gathering about the supper spread.
Everyone would be delighted.
The adda by then had been turned into some technical jargons and doctrines.
For Nupur it was very difficult to understand but still all she heard got stored into her subconscious memory.
For example if she heard her father telling the gathering at the adda that the 'Angry Young Movement' was one of the reasons why movies like 'Deewar' got the box office hit, she would keep the phrase 'angry young movement' in her mind.
And then if she heard Animesh uncle corroborating her father by nodding his head vehemently and adding that John Osborne did the same in theatre with Jimmy Porter,Nupur would keep that in her mind.

Long after, when the adda would have ended and everyone would have gone home, Nupur would sit beside her father. Uncle and aunt perhaps then had gone out to the bazar to buy something.
Then she would ask 'what is that Angry young thing?'

Father would guffaw.
Mother would look at father first, then to Nupur.
'It must be something very bad...'
Mother would say.
Father would smile and then he would talk about someone called Jimmy Porter.
Mother would ask jocularly if that Porter  worked in a railway platform.
There would be again a bout of laughter.
By that time uncle and aunt would probably return.
Uncle with a bag full of groceries and other items of daily use.
'He used to play saxophone...'
Uncle would remark, immediately stepping into the hall, partly overhearing that Porter thing.

Then the family would be having an adda on variants of saxophone players till there would be the time for the dinner.

Nupur would sleep off thinking of another Thursday to come, for there would be another adda and many more interesting things to learn.

All about the soil

'How many hours will it take?'
Rebati asked the conductor of the bus.
'Where you said, you will be going?'
The conductor asked. He had rolled a paper and with it he was trying to poke his ear.
The bus was just like a bus should be in this part of red soil. Filled with people, labourers, chicken, goats, and children on hips of women. They were all swinging and twirling keeping in exact timing with the twists and twirls the bus was having on the dusty road.
'How come people stay here?'
Rebati thought.
A few minutes ago a little boy had tugged her saree and soiled it.
His nose had something dropping out, slimy. Rebati almost wriggled with nausea.
'Bad decision...'
Rebati thought.
'I should have driven to here...but this papa of mine, he would never allow me to go anywhere driving...take the driver...Pooh! Uncle had grown old...he can't even see properly and the way he drives, as if he is trying to follow a snail! How many times asked papa to replace that driver-uncle, but he wouldn't budge...'
Rebati was fuming inside.
She felt drops of perspiration gathering on her forehead and nosetip.
'Where's those tissues?'
Rebati brought one out of her purse.
After a swipe it was a relief.
Recently she had made a makeover at a well known parlour. Cropped her hair to suit her face. Made a few curls.
'All will be wasted in this dust...but this assignment...'
Rebati's boss had asked her to collect samples of soil, from a village, some twenty five kilometres away from the heart of the city which would be used by their company as a sample. They are doing samplings of soil before they would be putting the data into a base. It would be part of a statistical survey.

The people who were sitting or standing by her were largely indifferent to her.
Rebati noticed that.
Only some urchins, with no clothes on their upper torso, were occasionally looking at her and giggling.
She didn't mind that.
After all she would just go to the place, collect the sample and turn back straight home.

'What about calling Subir and having a bit of telephone chat?'
Rebati thought.
But he might be busy.
'Okay then, let's try someone else.
After all this stupid journey by a bus through a dusty terrain.'
Rebati thought.

After half an hour the conductor called.
'That's Ballavpur...'
'Really?'
Rebati was elated.

She scraped through the crowd.
'Finally...'
Rebati looked around as she stood by the road.
'Where's the village?'
There was no sign of any hutment.
Only vast paddy fields on both sides of the road.

A lone electric tower structure stood in the midst of the paddy field that seemingly stretched to the horizon.
It was only ten thirty or so.
The sun was not really beating down, but after that journey by that bus with people almost jutting out of windows and the door, Rebati was feeling a bit clumsy.
She brought out her another swipe.
It turned blackish red as soon as she wiped her face with it.
The soil.

A man was driving a cycle van through the road.
'Excuse me, can you tell me where is Ballavpur?'
Rebati asked.
'Go down that way...'
The man showing her an embankment through the paddy fields, went away.
Rebati again made another turn of cursing which started with her papa and ended with her boss.

As she was walking, somehow, due to absentmindedness, she slipped.
And she fell into the field itself.
Now she had soil all over.

A boy who was with a stick running a cycle tyre, saw her.
He pulled her up.

'Where are you going to?'
'Ballavpur...'
Rebati said, almost in the brink of tears as she was.

'Come with me...'
Rebati followed the boy.
He took her to their hut.
A mud hut with straw roofing overhead.
Rebati was uncertain about entering the hut.
Then a woman came out.
A woman who was frail but sturdy.
'My mother...'
The boy said as he told her mother about finding Rebati in a paddy field.
Rebati informed her of the assignment.
The woman took her to their well.
She pulled pails of water and helped her to rub the soil of her saree.
'It will dry out before you would be going back...'
The woman told her in bengali.
Rebati started talking about her assignment.
It would be of no problem, she was assured.
She could take as much soil she could from Ballavpur.

At a 'god forsaken country'

'This God forsaken country! Can't believe you would make such a tour plan!'
Rudra grumbled as soon as the jeep brought him and Anjali down in front of a lonely looking cottage.
'Why ? You said you needed a quiet place...so we are here...'
Anjali said, smiling.
'Bull crap!'
Rudra shrugged with disgust.
Soon they were inside the cottage which had a cot looking like a charpoy at one corner, a pitcher, a window at the rear and a small room which was like a bathroom.
'At least they got a bathroom attached!'
Rudra said.
His anger seemingly subsided a bit.
A boy barely fourteen or fifteen years old brought two bowls of soup, a silver saucer with boiled eggs, pieces of bread and a small plastic cup with a paste which looked like chili flakes dipped in vinegar and soya sauce.

Seeing the food, Rudra wasted no time.
Anjali was hungry too, after the long overnight journey.

It was only nine in the morning.
The chill in the air was soothingly tolerable.
Chirpings of birds could be heard.

'But why you chose really this place which no one had heard of? Is there anything to see nearby? Anything? A temple? A waterfall? A monument? Anything?'
Rudra asked.

'Frankly, I don't know...'
Anjali said.
'You don't know?'
Rudra was surprised.
Even after three years of their marriage, he simply could not understand Anjali properly.

'Then, why you chose this place, for God's sake?'
Rudra was again getting irritated.
Anjali looked at him.
She thought she knew what would be the perfect thing for Rudra to calm down.
'Want to take a nap after this long journey? We would be deciding what we could do after a nap, how's that?'
Anjali asked.
'No! Let's go out for a walk...'
Rudra said, surprising Anjali.

They started their trek up the hill.
It was not very arduous.
Rudra was walking briskly, as if he knew there would be something ahead.
Anjali was walking at a slower pace.
She was trying to gather the smell of the foliage.
The chirpings of the birds she wanted to listen with her heart's content.
She wanted to take in the peacefulness of the place into her.
'Hey! Found something!'
Anjali heard Rudra's voice.
It echoed.

At a cutting a group of children were dancing and singing.

Rudra had started clicking photos of them.
Anjali went near them.
'What are you playing? Can we join you?'
Anjali asked the boy who appeared to be the leader of the group.
'We are not playing...'
The boy answered smiling.
'Then? What are you people doing here?'
Rudra asked.
A girl from the group came up.
'What you see as our songs and dance, is actually our ways of showing our gratitude to mother nature... We do that every spring...it is our ways of paying respect to nature... It is our holy communion with nature...for you town people can live without trees perhaps, but we never can... This forest is like our mother... And we respect and love her...'
The girl said, in broken English.

Rudra stood there completely dumbfounded.
Anjali was smiling. She was holding the girl's hands in hers.
She was smiling.

Old and new

If you think of me as that ol man
On the block,
I would love to be so,
For old is like finding grace,
Finding Philos as my proper place,

But then if you think of me as that new kid in town,
I would love to be that too,
For youth gives me colors
Finding feathers of a peacock,

So the choice is yours,
I am just
A whiff of a breeze,

I carry only leaves
And their murmur.

Ayushi's 'falguni'

With her day beginning at five thirty every day, starting with watering the plants, then making list of things to be brought from the bazar, the green groceries and others, then running to the kitchen to make things ready for the day,followed by making tea or coffee for herself and her hubby, the only time she gets some time for herself is usually one thirty or two. Then the house which has remained agog with activity cools off.
Only at the living cum dining downstairs, Ayushi 's father in law keeps some noise running by the conjoined efforts of his snoring (part of his mid noon siesta) and the blaring TV.
Many a times she has got downstairs and switched the TV off. But she has noted that soon after the TV is switched off, her father-in-law wakes up, as if the blaring TV keeps him company while he takes his siesta.
So she,nowadays, doesn't switch it off.
Today she is thinking she will jot down Jhumur's homework lessons in a notebook. Jhumur, her daughter will be returning from school around five forty five in the afternoon. Before that she will have to keep something ready for her to eat, hungry and weary as she returns from school with a big sack of books on her shoulders every day. Schools in the city are full of activities, apart from usual lessons, they have co-curricular activities ranging from yoga, karate, volleyball, baseball, tennis, music, drawing...what not?
Gaurav will be home at around nine or nine thirty.
He has his meetings and conferences almost every day, if he is in the city. After all he is the Area Head of an MNC.

Sometimes Ayushi thinks she has almost singlehandedly brought up Jhumur. Gaurav has provided no doubt the dough required for the family. If he is in the city, he tries sometimes to make up by taking them for a eating out or for a movie.

But...
Still sometimes she feels weary.
She misses her hometown, those trees before their house, that gulmohor.
Even after a decade and half, the memories are etched still there, so vibrant. They will perhaps forever remain that way.
Soon after her marriage her elder brother got married, and after that marriage, he got shifted to Noida, taking their parents with him.
That house had been rented out.
On occasions they gather there.
But those occasions have become a rarity nowadays.

Presently, Ayushi is standing at her favourite place, the balcony of their bed room upstairs. From here she can see the afternoon in the sleepy neighbourhood. Sometimes a motorcycle or a car will honk by. Sometimes a fruit seller will go crying his trade,'oranges, bananas, guavas, apples, pumpkins'.
Sometimes at the nearby playground she will find boys warming up in jerseys for a match or two.

She finds a girl, appearing to be almost of her daughter's age, cycling down the street below.

She looks at her, a simple looking girl, with two braids on her shoulders, cycling down and singing quite jovially a song that talks about the season of spring and its beauty.
Ayushi, as she listens, is transported to her school days.

From their house, the school was some five kilometres away. She and her brother used to walk all the way. They, while walking sometimes sang songs. Sometimes they would collect a pebble or a twig. They were their playthings.
During spring when the trees broke out in blossoms of varied Hues, they would pick them up and put them in their sacks.
Returning home after school, they would put them in a cane basket. They were their possessions.
Her brother had an inclination towards drawing. Sometimes he would draw still figures of bowls, baskets and flowers.
That inclination later turned into machine drawing. He became an engineer.
Compared to her brother, Ayushi was mediocre. She did graduation and then completed her masters in Bengali literature.

For the last fifteen years or so, she had been doing what a housewife like her should do. She is the 'manager of household works'. It is not that she is unhappy about it.

But this girl in her teens. Her going away singing a song of spring. Her free willy ride through the street.
Ayushi feels a sudden tinge of melancholia in her.
'What can I do?'

At six Jhumur comes home.
Ayushi serves her with her food.

'Ma, what's up? You look very much absentminded today?'
Jhumur asks.
'Nothing dear, your homeworks have been copied on your rough work exercise book...do them'

Saying this, Ayushi goes to the living cum dining room.
Her father in law is reading a magazine.
'Baba, want to have tea and snacks?'
Father in law nods.

Late in the evening, when Jhumur dozes off on her reading desk, Ayushi arranges her books and copies on the desk.
Then she sits on the couch.
She has found a scrapbook in Jhumur's cupboard where she keeps her old books and copies.

She starts thinking about their house at that muffasil town.
And she is reminded of a friend of hers.
Her name was Falguni
Ayushi starts writing a letter to Falguni, whose address she has found rummaging her own almirah.
Ayushi doesn't even know whether Falguni still stays at Silchar.
The address she has found was in a letter written to her by Falguni some two years back. Falguni got settled there after her marriage. The letter had been written by Falguni soon after her marriage.

'I hope they are still there...'
Ayushi thinks as she starts writing her letter, her first probably after some twenty years!