PTSC Diary: January 30, 31

Dateline: January 30-31, 2015 (Weekend Diary)

It seems to me the most beautiful phrase in the world: coming home. I returned home Thursday evening, stayed until Saturday afternoon.
Two things increase when I go home: affection and weight.
Both are terrible. Both are tormenting me!

I came back to my room. Coming back to one's room is a strange thing. It feels good to think, feels good to smile for no reason, feels good to forgive even when someone hurts you, feels good to breathe in the scent of books, feels good to wander through rooms and attics, feels good to find everything delightful.
Even being alone feels good. The one who had come, left—I had brought her back only to make leaving easier; even when memories of her come chasing back, they can be properly chased away. I don't bother God much anyway; when I'm in my room, I don't bother Him at all; He too stays at peace.

There's only one pain: when I return home I see up close how my parents are truly, truly growing old. They grew old raising me. When I was helpless, they stood by me. When they're becoming helpless, I can't be there for them. All my selfish achievements seem meaningless before this realization. The service my younger brother provides by staying close to our parents—I don't have the good fortune to give that. Work begins to feel like a merciless ironic demon; it takes away, yet it's precisely because it takes away that one understands there's something in life worth taking.

Age is increasing, let it. But why is despair increasing alongside it? Despair of every color and shade. Such strange, pointless thoughts also crowd into my head.

What is home?
Where beloved people wait for my return. Where my mother is, my father is, my younger brother is, my books are. Where, when I return, the stories saved up to tell my mother run out before the holiday does; where I go planning to do certain things, but don't even remember to do them. In Mandakranta Sen's poetry, home becomes more fully home than I see anywhere else. I'm sharing it:
 
Home means a house wrapped in shade
opening the door, stepping into the courtyard
Home means I'll return quickly
Home means remembering you
 
Home means field after field
sunlight stretching its legs along the embankment
the broken stone steps in the pond's embrace
I've cooked rice, won't you come bathe?
Home means when evening descends
lighting the lamp, we'll sit side by side
quiet neighborhood, when eight o'clock strikes
we'll hear the train's whistle from afar
Home means all through the night
love deeper than sleep
Home means your eyes filling up
gathering dreams and bringing them
Home means all these little things
Home means from sky to earth
on one side the path, difficult walking
at path's end, home means—you.

Well, what is life? Where is life? Shall I share a conversation from our dining table at home?
: Ma, I'll have another piece of fish.
: Dada, eat less, eat less. In two days you won't even fit in a rickshaw. When you get in a rickshaw, I feel sorry for the rickshaw-puller.
: Baba, he's a naughty boy. Don't listen to him. Eat, eat. Take the rohu. This one turned out well.
: Why? The bata fish turned out even better. Take that one. (We two brothers started laughing with our hands over our mouths. Ma cooked the rohu, our housemaid cooked the bata. Any woman will get upset if you criticize her cooking. This was Baba's trick to tease Ma.)
: Yes, no one likes my cooking anymore. I've gotten old. (I kept saying to myself, mischief-maker, mischief-maker...)
: Dada, take whichever you want. If you want, you can even open the fridge and eat raw fish. All the fish is completely fresh.
: You'll get slapped. You eat. You're such a skinny thing!
: Ehh! Can't find a place to show off. He himself went to Korea and ate raw snails and mussels.
: Baba, take some pickle. (I put pickle on Baba's plate.)
: Let's see, tell me, what's this pickle made of?
: This is...mango, isn't it?
: No. This is jackfruit pickle, baba.
: What! Jackfruit pickle exists? (Baba is an extremely simple type of person. Most of the time, whatever I say, he believes.)
: Ma, have you eaten jujube pickle?
: Don't give your mother too much spicy pickle. If she eats too much spice, she'll fight more. As it is, what she's cooked, a dog wouldn't eat!
: Be quiet! Why? Do I fight?
: Baba, do you remember when we were little, Ma didn't get angry even over silly things?
: Hmm, your mother doesn't have that anger anymore. (Hearing Baba's words, Ma started smiling quietly.)
: Baba, will you never get married? Won't we get to see our daughter-in-law?
: Pappu, you hurry up and get settled and married so your parents can see a daughter-in-law.
: Fine. I have no objection.
: What do you mean? Baba, don't do this. It's not good to marry before your older brother.
: You rascal! You get married yourself.
: Baba, I've given up on marriage. Hee hee hee...
: I won't be able to cook for you two anymore. You'll never become proper people.
: Why, Ma? Why won't you be able to cook? Shall we hire another helper?
: Ma, Dada is scheming to make his wife do the work.
: Do you know what a beating is? You'll get beaten. Did I say that?
: Baba, you have ice cream on your nose.
: Your father doesn't know how to eat ice cream!
: Ehh! Don't you remember how I used to feed you ice cream? As if you're so capable!
: Ma, really? When?
: You'll never become a proper person. What are you saying in front of the children?

Ah! One could live just for a lunch like this! What is life? Father-mother-brother...I mean, fooling around at the dining table with close people is life! Where is life? Let's borrow the answer from Milan Kundera: "Draw a line; draw a line that pleases you. And remember that it is not the artist's role to copy the outlines of things but to create a world of his own lines on paper." (Milan Kundera, 'Life is Elsewhere') Life is there, where we find it or love to find it, dream of finding it.

Saturday evening at 7 PM I came to PTRC (I'm not saying 'returned.' Except for one's own room, going anywhere else—calling that 'returning' pains me.) Leaving the room, leaving everything in the room, I felt very much like saying, like Jaromil in Kundera's 'Life Is Elsewhere': "You are beautiful,"..."But I will have to leave you."

I'm thinking, if three things could happen according to my wishes, it would be quite nice—whom to say goodbye to, when to say goodbye, where to say goodbye.