Untitled Story

*** 1 ***

“Board game? This is a bored game.” said Runa.

“What else could we all do? Getting stuffed in this obnoxious house with the phase gone out?” said I.

“Oof!! On top of the load shading there is mosquitoes. At least someone do something about it. If it keeps going on like this they will end up drinking all my blood within next morning” Mitali screamed as a mosquito bit her.

“Koi… amake to kichhu kamrachchhe na?” Binoy invariably supported the mosquitoes.

Hrishi snapped, “Abbe… tu itna kaala hain ki machchhar bhi tujhko andhere se alag nehi kar pa raha”

And there was again a thrust of laughter and giggles.

Mitali said, “Ohh!! SIELENCE! Why you guys laugh laudly?”

Hrishi said, “Because it is no crime to not to be so hushed up all the way” and added a laud “HA HA HA”.

Mitali got pink over this and said, “You guys are all the same. Do whatever you want. Please don’t bother me”

“No one have that much time to bother you. See, we are already very busy.” Hrishi said and lit up a cigarette.

Amrita was silent all the way. now she snapped, “Hey Hrish… Don’t smoke.”

Hrishi snapped back, “I am not smoking.”

- “Uhh… then would you please tell me exactly what are you doing with the burning cigarette in your mouth?”
- “Just trying to get rid of the mosquitoes, and using tobacco in substitute of dhuna” and again started laughing.
- “You are just intolerable. I can not sustain you people any more. I am leaving” Mitali said.

“Where?” Binoy asked as if he was genuinely curious.

“Outside. Just getting rid of you.” Mitali declared.

I said in a newsreader’s tone, “Mitu is going outside. In the outside, amidst the pitch black darkness, a grayish figure will emerge out of the ivory backdrop. Slowly the figure will come towards our beloved Mitu. And Mitu will scream, ‘AAAAAHHH!!!’” I imitated Mitali’s sharp voice.

“You people are really intolerable.” And mitali sat beside me with a distinct thump.

The cigarette passing from hand to hand had just reached me. After taking a puff I politely asked Mitali, “Counter?”

Probabli this was a bit extra. Mitali got senti over this. And we all had to make her up. “Mitu… Mitu… Mitu… you are the gem of our team. See we were just having some fun. No intention truly…

*** 2 ***

On the contrary, the outside world was very calm. So calm that even the breathing of the plants and trees could be heard. The leaves of the tall deodar trees were trembling in the excitement of spring. The taller coconut and palm trees were making distinct hissing noises… they were breathing as it seemed. And a faint yellow moon could be seen near the horizon. The shadow of the moon looked garland of light around her.

In the very faint moonlight, two elongated shadows could be seen. They were slowly approaching the house.

*** 3 ***

“The whole matter proves one thing for certain, Mitu has certain allergy towards ghosts. Especially if they are pale and big Brahmadatyi type”

“Ohh!! Shut up Hrishi, you people frighten Mitu so much that she doesn’t even has the courage to go to the bathroom alone” said Amrita.

“Shut up you guys. I said I am bored” Runa talked after a long time in her distinct girly-girly tone.

“Yes, so are we. But do we have other options?” snapped Hrishi.

“Other options than playing Ludo in turns. Buladi herself may have not been played this much Ludo.” I said.

(May be continued...)

RAHMAN

(2nd Issue) The previous issue is here

---

The story so far: When Rahman’s mother died when he was 21, the jobless Rahman became homeless too. Rambling here and there as a vagabond Rahman met a dying lady who gave him some coins. The last coin was a bit bizarre. It had an arrow on it. Whenever Rahman tossed it, the arrow side would be on top and pointing to a particular direction. Having nothing to do Rahman followed the direction and reached a small teashop where he bought bread. But as soon as the shopkeeper saw the coin in Rahman’s hand, they seemed to recognize him as the sacred walker walking the path of end unknown.

---

Rahman reached the shop. He could only afford one half breads with the one rupee left. Hesitating whether to spend or not spend, Raman entered the shop.

“Get me one of those half breads” said Rahman.

The bulky shopkeeper woman barked, “It costs one rupee.”

“Yes, give me that. I am hungry” said Rahman.

“Show me the money first. Lot’s of people from the poor village comes and eats and then asks us to write down the bill in the credit book which is not ever paid. Our cashbox are filling with credit book instead of cash. The shop will shut down if things keeps on going like this”, the woman barked again.

Well, that was not the behavior a first time customer expects from a shopkeeper. But in life the expected things does not always happen. Rahman was still reluctant to spend the last coin, so he was hesitating.

“Give me the money or move your butt out of my shop” the woman barked at the highest possible pitch. Rahman was jerked with the intensity and loudness and slowly gave her the coin.

But as soon as the woman saw the one rupee coin, the body language of the woman changed. She handed over him one half bread and gave the one rupee back to him.

Rahman said, “The coin is perfectly alright. It is not disputed. You must take this one. I have none other left.”

The woman responded, “Son, First stop people do not take money from the sacred walkers.” Rahman could not get the meaning. He was too amazed to ask what she meant. The woman said, “Take this bread son.”

As Rahman was leaving the shop, he heard the woman saying to the aged man “Saw him? He is the chosen one.”

Rahman’s ear drums were buzzing. What were these things? What is meant by sacred walkers? What was the meaning of the chosen one? Totally puzzled Rahman stood in front of the shop and tossed the coin again. This time the coin landed vertically.

The coin landed vertically… wait, this means this is the place where the coin was intending to take me. The coin guided me here… Yes, this is the place. But why is that? What is special in this distant teashop in this godforsaken place?

“I must check it out” thought Rahman. Forgetting all his earthly needs like appetite, Rahman went back to the shop and his jaw dropped. He first thought he must have been forgot the path back to the teashop. He went back and came again to make sure he was right. But where the hell is the teashop? There was nothing. The landscape was just empty; only some bushes scattered here and there and some cows grazing. Puzzled Rahman tossed the coin again, this time it was pointing somewhere else.

“What the hell is this happening?” Rahman cried aloud and sat on the empty field. His brain had just ceased to process the unnatural data which was in contrary to the logics it learned from Rahman’s childhood. First a dying grandma, then a bizarre coin, then some dream sequences, after that some bizarre people in a teashop with their God-knows-what-it-means set of dialogs and now all of a sudden the shop is vanished. All I got is this coin and this half bread.

“I need to use my brain” thought Rahman. What was the shopkeeper saying? “First stop people…” this means there are more. There is way ahead; perhaps a very long journey towards the end unknown.

“What should I do? Continue walking or get back to my village home and continue to work in Sadhan Kaka’s grocery shop as a helper for a meager 100 rupees at the month’s end? Whatever; let me eat the bread first”

Being too puzzled amidst these weird scenes Rahman forgot his appetite. Suddenly it came back. He tore off the paper wrapping and had a bite.

“WHACKK!!! There is something inside. A piece of plastic coated paper was peeping out from the bitten off corner of the bread. Rahman quickly ate the bread and got the paper out. Some message was written on it.


(May be continued)

- Joydip Datta

বিচ্ছিন্ন কিছু ঘটনা ছাড়া...

বিচ্ছিন্ন কিছু ঘটনা ছাড়া এবারের পঞ্চায়েত নির্বাচন অবাধ ও শান্তিপূর্ণ হয়েছে।

শান্তিপূর্ন নির্বাচনেই অন্ততঃ ২৩ জন (আঃবাঃপঃ) মারা গেলেন...
অশান্তির নির্বাচন হলে কী হত?

পরীক্ষা শেষ হল

 একরাশ বেদনার মাঝখান দিয়ে আমার কলেজ জীবন শেষ হল। দেখতে দেখতে কেটে গেল চার চারটি বছর। সেই ফার্স্ট-ইয়ারে গুটি-গুটি পায়ে ঢুকেছিলাম অনেকটা ধুকপুকুনি সঙ্গে নিয়ে... ঢুকতেই কানে এসেছিল কলেজের অনেক বদনাম - সিনিয়রদের মুখ থেকে... যার অনেকটাই হয়তো সত্যি, তাও আজ বলব কলেজ থেকে পেয়েছি ও প্রচূর।

আজ এই বিদায়বেলায় মনে পড়ে সেই প্রথম বছরের দিনগুলোর কথা, <may be continued>

The Night Before AI Exam

Within a few hours there will be the last written exam of my student life. And I am now going to sleep with a terrible preparation too. Not because I am tired, but because my brain got saturated with the AI stuff which mostly I could not crack.

There is a pitch black night outside. Only the outlines of the houses and trees are seeming like grotesque obstacles to the dark red cloudy midnight sky. Within a few hours the black will be faded by morning rays and after some more hours my 'Student' life (not in the broader sense) will end. After the exam there will be no 'MID SEM BREAK'...

What next?

5th May, 2008, 01:04 AM

When I Just Started Scribbling

It was when i was ~ 2 to 3 years old...

हिन्दी :D

ब्लागस्पाट के ब्लॉग में आप हिन्दी में भी लिख सकते हैं। मगर मैं किउं लिक्क्हू?

Diplomacy – acting all the way

It is too hot outside and humid too. If it doesn’t rain in this early Baishakh, it is too much. At least for someone like me who is caught by fever with body ache only after moving in the sun for a couple of days. I don’t know much about lots of the hard working people working just beneath the sun day in and day out to get the two ends meet. See I am again flagellating.

But Hey!! Wait… Wait… I am drifting away from the topic.

As you grow older, whatever you are in life, successful or a loser, at the top or at the bottom or rather pushing all the way for a place in the middle like the huge crowd and me, one thing is for sure. You learn acting as you grow older. You need to be diplomatic all the way; no emotions whatsoever (or you need to fake the emotion in some situations like a funeral of a distant uncle). If you get success, reach at the top, yet you can not shout “See I am at the top. Come on chase me… I will piss you all off.” You can not show your joy… you must put a matter-of-factly smile on your face.

And more importantly,

Say you lose the game. You get to the bottom with a distinct thump. Suddenly you see people who were behind you are suddenly way ahead of you (like it happens when your car/bike crashes in a racing game like Road Rash or NFS), when your life get some unusual wrong turn which you did not anticipated even in your darkest nightmares, when people just cease noticing your presence, you become suddenly invisible as if you are a total not-worthy-type of person, then also you must put a diplomatic smile stuck to your lips as if nothing have happened and your are still the happy-happy person as you were some months before. You can not shout… you can not scream your heart out. You are fucked up in this jail of pseudo happiness which does not let you to be genuinely too happy or too sad.

You can not speak your heart out.

I sometimes get a mood of singing aloud or laughing to my hearts content (whatever may the reason be) at a crowded Sealdah station. I could do so when I was under five. But if I try that at this age, people will pay me a long curious/disgusting/brushing-over-top-to-bottom glance. If I dare to do it again someone will ask me if I was alright or just tell me to stop. If I do it for the third time, there are again options. Either there will be crowd all around me or someone will slap me hard or I will be handed over to the RPF.

And as a result (I think) you gradually become a never-happy-never-sad class of ROBOT. By acting that you do not have any emotions most of the times, one day you really lose them.

You see, most of the times we don’t know what we actually want. Even if we get to know what we want, we can not speak them out (desires is the root cause of all evils… I know. But still, with out fulfilling desires you can not walk the path of detachment … I think. And desires may not always be “bad things” like wanting to have sex with the pretty chick at the bus stop or killing your bad boss out.) Just because of the fact that we need to be smart and diplomatic.

Sometimes I think it is better to be an animal.

- Joydip Datta

All About My Blog

News paper cutting from TOI Kolkata

Passing lazy times

Puzzled inside a cyber cafe... i am typing. When the reasons for which you entered the cafe is done in 20 minutes, and you still have 40 minutes to wasten you pass the time like this.

The cyber cafe is awsome. Most of the keys do not have anything written upon them. So, who do not have any idea, may not type at all. Fortunately i had some so, i am still typing.

The enter key gets locked every second time you press it. So, upon restabilizing that button let me think... ummm... what should i write?

Lete me put some idea about the next few lines of RAHMAN here...

RAHMAN

SCRATCH PAGES...

---

Upon taking a bite from the bread, Rahman started movig on. The words from the shopkeeper was still buzzing in his head. What the hell does these means? Who is he? A follower of the noble path or a chosen one or what? Randomized gibberish...

And on the top of that, the coin is not working. The coin is just working as any other coin in this world. Just normal. Heads and tails are all outcome of some random experiment. Unmindfully, Rahman took another bite from the bread suddenly he astonihed.

There was a paper inside the bread. He took the paper out. There was again some gibberish....
A poem or so. He read the lines aloud.

"

হঠাৎই

এমনি হঠাৎ পড়ল তোকে মনে।
সেই হাসি আর নামিয়ে নেওয়া চোখ।
চোখের কোণে চিকিয়ে ওঠা জল...
এলোমেলো সব ভাবনা অনর্থক।

এই সেদিনও হাঁটতে হাঁটতে মোরা,
পেরিয়ে গেছি শুরুর থেকে শেষ।
আজকে হঠাৎ প্রাণের মধ্যে কেন
উজিয়ে ওঠে স্মৃতির অবশেষ?

সত্যিই কি সব কিছু শেষ হল?
সত্যিই কি আর কিছু নেই বাকি?
চল্‌ না আবার ফের থেকে স্টার্ট করি...
এ হাত খানা তোর হাতেতেই রাখি।

A MAFIATIC DREAM!

A great dream was that. Let me share here… Last night when I was back after my didi’s marriage ceremony… I dreamt a lot; probably as an adverse effect of too rich diet at such a late of night.

---

Scene 1:

A large auditorium; some sort of play is going on. In the front row side seat, a girl ~ age 25 is sitting. The camera rotates around the auditorium. There are several boxes around the wall. The auditorium is not a house-full one. There are a few spectators, as it is expected in a group theatre show. The camera is placed at the back row aiming to the front row seats. As a result the face of the girl can not be seen.

Suddenly a sound of gunshot causes the spectators and artists flee in panic. The sound was coming from one of the boxes far above. The girl was found dead in the front row. The bullet pierced her neck.

Scene 2:

3 investigators, two men and one woman, all in their late twenties are searching the entire auditorium for the shooter. The two men are searching the ‘no-entry’ rooms, the generator room, and the computer control panel; online edit room, green rooms etc. Suddenly the phone of one investigator rings. It is the woman investigator. She says, “Come in the basement. The chap has fled. We need to reach out.”

- “Basement… where?”

- “near the broken wooden horse… come where all the garbage are dumped.”

Scene 3:

A young girl, Anjali, age around 24 – 25, has come to a hill station with her parents. They buys the Times Of India and sees the front page news; “YOUNG GIRL MURDERED AT CITY HALL”… Under which a long article on administration failure and risks of living of an common civilian was discussed. The girl was identified as Simran Siddique, a 25 yrs old post grad student of arts and music, leaving in hostel and studied in the most prestigious institute of the hill station. The murderer could not be cached till now. But the police was trying. The bullet entered from her neck and got out through the forehead piercing her brain.

- “Ma go!!” said the mother seeing the picture of the dead body in the front page.

- “The girl must have some ill connections. The young generation doesn’t know where they are going.”

Anjali starts shouting at her father at this. She argues, “When hundreds die in a terrorist attack, is it necessary for all of them to have ill connections?”

Suddenly the all fell silent. There was also something else in the news paper except from the murder news. It was a missing ad which drew there attention.

“Simran Sen. D/o Ambareesh Sen… is missing for the last one week. Anyone to give a tip off will be prized Rs. One lakh.”

But it was not only the ad. There was more. What made the family silent was the picture of Simran and the way the girl resembled Anjali.

All the people started staring at them but none approached. Although the prize money was much alluring, but there was another catch. Ambareesh Sen was the most dangerous mafia of the city.

The father said, “Let’s go back my dear, first, a brutal murder in the center of the city; then the picture of my daughter making him the daughter of a mafia kingpin. Oof!!!”

Scene 4:

The den of Ambareesh Sen. In the central room, Ambareesh Sen, a short, fat and bald man ~ age 55 is sitting. With him is his personal manager, Someshwar Singh (45). There is also a woman (age ~35). The woman is wearing a light green shifon saree. Suddenly a young man in his late 20s or early 30s knocks in the glass window. The sound system asks, “Yes?” The man calls the woman. The woman comes out. She is slim, a bit skinny and fair. The waitress in the lounge asks them to go to the private room.

When in the private room, the man tells the whole story to the woman. The man made the woman understand her duties and left.

Scene 5:

The drop scene:

In the taxi stand at Sealdah station, the woman at the den was sitting inside a taxi and the investigator was talking through the window. The taxi started moving towards the A J C Bose road flyover. There were four people in the taxi; the investigator trio and the woman.

The male investigator started telling the whole story. Ambareesh Sen was one of the most dangerous narcotic smugglers in India. He had links to the opium and marijuana fields of Afghanistan and the Middle East market from where the drugs were circulated all over the world. Her only daughter did not have a tip off it. Suddenly one evening everything got revealed to Simran. She could not believe her ears. Her dad was her idol. She became furious. She threatened her father that she will spill the bean in front of the police. The father then drugged her and told everyone that she is gone mad. She was locked in a room and given narcotics on a regular basis. Suddenly Simran managed to flee. Ambareesh got furious. He told his men to shoot her wherever they find simran. Out of mistake, they falsely shot Simran Siddique in the auditorium.

Three people investigator group was applied by CBI. The woman in the den was a CBI employee in the guise of a Bar Dancer… entered the den.

নিরন্তর ভাট

কি লিখব জানি না। একান্তে খুলে বসেছি ভাটের পাতা। ফালতু ব্লগের ফালতু লেখা লিখতে চলে এসেছি কিছু না ভেবেই।

কেন এসেছি জানি না। দিনান্তে খুলে বসেছি ভাটের পাতা। অগাধ জ্ঞান বিতরণ করতে চলে এসেছি কিছু না জেনেই।

কেন জানিনি জানি না। অজান্তে চচ্চড়ি করে ফেলেছি তোমার ঘিলু। তুই এখন রেগেমেগে কোথায় পালাবি ভাবছিস।

আমার ব্লগ পড়িস নি। এখান থেকে পালা। কোনো ভ্যালু পাবি নি। কোনো শক্ত থিয়োরী সহজ করে বোঝানো নেই এতে। জীবনের আপাত সরল প্রতিপাদ্যগুলোকেই জটিল করে ঘাঁটা রয়েছে।

কিছু চারা কথা, কিছু ঝাড়া কথা, কিছু ঘিলু ঘুঁটে ঘুঁটে নাড়া কথা এখানে পড়ে রয়েছে। বেশিক্ষণ থাকিস নি এখানে। যা বুঝেছিস, যা শিখেছিস অ্যাদ্দিনে সব ভুলে যাবি।

পালা... পালা... শীগ্‌গীর পালা।

শুধু দুটি ছবি রেখে যাই...

আজ আর বেশী কথা নয়। শুধু দুটি ছবি রেখে যাই।
প্রথমটি আমার হাইস্কুলের; ইছাপুর নর্থল্যান্ড হাই স্কুল (উঃ মাঃ) -- শেষেরটি ক্যালানিবাচক অব্যয় না।

/\ Ichhapur Northland High School (H.S.)

দ্বিতীয়টি আমার প্রাইমারী স্কুলের; রাজেন্দ্র বিদ্যা মন্দির।

/\ Rajendra Vidya Mandir
Debitala Road, Ichhapur

Soothe & Calm

In a silent night I opened the window of my room to get a feel of wintry chill all over my face. When the vast blackness of the outside world gradually fades in a blur, I reminded you. The outlines of the distant figures can be seen in the faint light of the stars. It is a dark night of new moon. The sky is black as nothing. The distant lampposts are also absent in their usual duty. There is a pond just behind my room. When I open my window, I come face to face of my shadow in the pond. Some fishes are playing in the previously still water. There is a calm but far less than the one I get when I be with you…

RAHMAN

by Joydip Datta

---

The previous issues have been included in this post because they needed to be modified a bit. This post thus contains the full story till today.

---

Sometimes time flow so stupidly you often fail to realize that it is actually flowing. You have engaged yourself in some stuff which now seems stupid and baseless. Thinking of the past days of glory... Rahman was lying idle... yet another day of no-output “Yet another day towards the complete bullshit that is going to come.”

Rahman knows very well that the money he has got from the old lady will end soon. And she is not very keen on spending this money either. It pains him a lot to use the money got from a dying lady. When he helped her in drinking water he had no idea of using this courtesy later in life. He also promised her the due funeral (which he kept) but accepting money in return... was a sin. But when the lady said that, "You seem a good boy to me. See, I have this tiny amount of money. But it has no use for me. You keep it dear... You require it more." And she died.

When Rahman was done with the funeral task, he first thought he won't use the money the lady gave him. Somewhere it was pinching. To use the money got in return of putting water in the mouth of a dying lady was strictly unacceptable. But as time passed and his resources were ended, he thought, "Ok... I will not spend the money... but I can borrow a little amount. Dear, when you are hungry, everything else gets less priority than food itself. And the tradition of borrowing continued. And today, that money too was near its end.

What will Rahman do now?

* * *

Rahman was thinking all these stuff while doing his evening namaz. When the namaz was over, he was again angry with himself. While doing a namaz, full concentration should be on Allah. But he was thinking these material problems! He is surely a bad Muslim. He pinched himself again and again for this. His bad mood got worse.

After a while, again the material problems surrounded him. Oh my God! He can at most manage some food for the next morning only. What will he do after that? What will he eat?

With these thoughts that never come to a conclusion, Rahman slowly felt asleep. Rahman was sleeping. Suddenly he saw a man. Dressed like a common farmer. He saw the man working in a coarse field with an axe. When the man saw him he said, "Rahman, you are a very nice child. Just know one thing. If you know your path and can gather enough conviction to keep on walking the path then the energy will eventually come to you. " saying this, the man hit the rough soil hard with his axe. And within the next split second, the coarse field was gone. Instead, there was the eye soothing greenery of a paddy field.

Rahman wake up. He was full with confusion. Who was this man? Was he his father? Rahman had never seen his father before. He has been told that his father died before his birth in a road accident. He was walking drunk when a truck ran over him. Rahman's idea over his father was not that bright. His father was a regular drinker. And if he didn't die in that accident, he would die out of liver failure. That man he saw last night had a kind of glow emerging from him. No. He can not be his father.

Rahman was thinking under the dizzy for quite a long time. Then he tried to get up. He needed to move on… and get somewhere meaningful. The dream was still ringing in his head. The farmer, the green paddy field, the golden axe was still vivid in his eyes. But enough of this lazy dream, he thought. The time was to do something.

But as he tried to get up, he could not. His whole body ached. His head span and Rahman realized that he had fever. “A bit strong one” he thought. He lied down at the same place where he was sitting for a while. And he fell asleep for once again.

There was the paddy field and the farmer too; smiling proudly with his golden axe in hand. Grinning to him the farmer said, “And I will guide you in your path of quest. But it is up to you to find out the markers I provide. Never be afraid my dear. The path will be troublesome. But believe me, that trouble is worthy of it. Just stay noble by heart, and you will succeed. And one last thing, do not get too much upset in seeming me in this way. True religion does not depend on strange rituals.”

Rahman saw it was raining in the field; a heavy rain that made the farmer not visible. And when the rain stopped, the farmer was gone and in the whole field was golden glee of mature grains.

* * *

He woke up for the second time. He was feeling a lot better. In fact, his whole body was experiencing a comfort he never felt before. His fever was gone. By that time it was almost noon. He stood up to get to the nearby food stall to get some food with the last few paisa of the old woman. After eating, when he went to pay the vendor he saw something unusual. He had 3 rupees left. One two rupees coin and a one rupee coin was his last possession. The boiled egg was of rupees two. But there was something very strange with the one rupee. On tail side it was very normal but on head side instead of the national emblem, there was an arrow.

He came back to the lone rock on which he was sitting earlier. He was still puzzled over the dreams. Was He God? Or was just a nonsense outcome of a troubled brain? Did that meant anything or was just gibberish? Who was the man? Was he his father? Or was an incarnation? What he meant by quest? Rahman was surely not in a quest. Every quest has a particular aim… a particular destination. And the very lack of aim and destination was the tragedy of Rahman’s life.

While thinking these, Rahman was tossing with the coin absentmindedly. But then another strange thing happened. Perhaps it was a day of strange things. With utter astonishment, Rahman discovered a pattern when he tossed the coin. The result was always the same… a head. And more than that, the arrow was pointing the same direction every time the coin was tossed. And the direction was pointing the road beside.

“…I will guide you in your path of quest. But it is up to you to find out the markers I provide…” was it a marker? Rahman thought. Was it pointing the path to pursue the quest? Shall Rahman follow the direction the coin was showing?

Rahman did not have any option.

He did not have any path to follow. He was a perfect vagabond. In fact he was grateful to the coin for showing him at least one way go. At least he will not have to ramble in the streets. At least he is getting a mission in life, an aim and a reason to live.

Yes, he will follow the path the coin was showing.

* * *

When he reached the road, Rahman tossed again. To his relief, the coin pointed along the road. It would surely be worse if he had to follow the coin through bushes. Road are always better for walking.

And Rahman walked for the whole day. He tossed the coin to be sure about the direction in every few minutes and the coin always told him to move forward through the same path. He walked, walked and walked. Glad to be in a cause after so many days of rambling here and there. But as he was walking and the day was moving towards dusk, Rahman felt hungry. And as Rahman felt more and more hungry, the urge for quenching the hunger felt more important for him than pursuing a seemingly foolish quest and following a seemingly bogus coin.

When he stopped at a small tea shop beside the road, it was already evening. The visibility was reduced as the sun sat half an hour ago. The tea shop was shabby. The inside of the shop was shadowy. The shop was selling tea, toast, bread etc. As expected in a lone shop in a deserted place, the shop was empty. Only the middle aged shopkeeper woman and an aged person were sitting inside. There were biscuits in glass jars at the front of the oven. On the oven, tea was steaming in a old bowl. The bowl was black outside. The breads were piled on one side of the oven.

Rahman reached the shop. He could only afford one half breads with the one rupee left. But as he was going to pay the woman with the one rupee, the woman responded, “Son, First stop people do not take money from the sacred walkers.” Rahman could not get the meaning. He was too amazed to ask what she meant. The woman said, “Take this bread son.”

As Rahman was leaving the shop, he heard the woman saying to the aged man “Saw him? He is the chosen one.”

Rahman’s ear drums were buzzing. What were these things? What is meant by sacred walkers? What was the meaning of the chosen one? Totally puzzled Rahman stood in front of the shop and tossed the coin again. This time the coin landed vertically.

(May be continued)

শেষমেশ

---

এতমাস পরে
পড়ে থাকল শুধু কিছু চেষ্টা।
মিল হওয়ার
খাপ খাওয়ার।।

আর কিছু নেই হাতে।
আছে শুধু চেষ্টার খতিয়ান।

আর কিছু তুলনা...

আমি কি করেছি আর ও কি করেছে...
আমি এটা করেছি তা সত্বেও ও এটা করেছে!
আমি এত করেছি আর ও কি করেছে!
আমার জন্য ও কি করেছে?

আমি চেষ্টা করেছি
চেষ্টা করেগেছি...

মিল হওয়ার
খাপ খাওয়ার।

আমি ওর জন্য কি করেছি?

Taare Zameen Par

“Art is nothing but the expression of your emotion” said Ram Shankar Nikumbh. And from the very beginning we are told to suppress our emotions and do our work. Don’t do what you like to do. Just do what is more fruitful. From the very childhood, we all are puzzled inside a rat race. A never ending competition… where only the first one wins. A kind of maze… parents, relatives, teacher show us the way in. but they themselves don’t know the way out. We all are told to follow a simple rule: study-exam-study-exam and perhaps no learning. “Everybody wants numero uno in their home. And at the end of the game you should be either a doctor or an engineer or else in management.” The core of the story is simple… you should do whatever it takes to be a money earning machine. You should do something that pays you buck. What you are doing is not important. What is important is how much it pays back.

And this game starts right from the childhood. We are told to suppress all those abilities just because the deciders think that they are not that much fruitful. And as we grow up, this idea is well inside our brain. We become a robot who does only those things which it is supposed to do. Other things are simply wastage of time. And when we ourselves become parents we do whatever it takes to enroll the names of our children in this same never ending rat race in which we, ourselves are running, running and running.

This is not a review kind of thing of TZP. But I would like to share the story in a very short way (rather copy pasted it from Wikipedia):

Ishaan Awasthi is an eight-year-old whose world is filled with wonders that no one else seems to appreciate; colours, fish, dogs and kites are just not important in the world of adults, who are much more interested in things like homework, marks and neatness. And Ishaan just cannot seem to get anything right in class.

When he gets into far more trouble than his parents can handle, he is packed off to a boarding school to ‘be disciplined’. Things are no different at his new school, and Ishaan has to contend with the added trauma of separation from his family.

One day a new art teacher bursts onto the scene, Ram Shankar Nikumbh, who infects the students with joy and optimism. He breaks all the rules of ‘how things are done’ by asking them to think, dream and imagine, and all the children respond with enthusiasm, all except Ishaan. Nikumbh soon realizes that Ishaan is very unhappy, and he sets out to discover why. He meets his parents and comes to know about Ishaan's problems of dyslexia and his wonderful world of imagination. He sets out to help Ishaan at any cost. Finally his dream comes true when Ishaan stands out as an Art Scholar and also passes out his annual exams in school. At last Ishaan thanks his teacher Ram for helping him out to create his own world.

We all suffer from more or less the same trouble in the childhood. We can not do as our heart says. Many of us liked drawing, singing or other stuffs. But they have been forced to suppress them to carry on works. And these things don’t stop when we grow up. The difference is when we are young we can fight with teachers or parents to pursue our own liking. But when we grow up, we can not fight anymore because in that case we have to fight with ourselves. We have become a robot who only works and earns and flagellates whenever he doesn’t seem to be working.

Taare Zameen Par is one film that not only entertains you but enlightens you.