Reflection: Ninety-two.
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Books are like beloved to me. They cannot be lent, nor borrowed. When a beloved is near, doesn’t the heart fill with contentment? There’s no compulsion to touch, to caress. Books are the same. Let some books remain around me—I don’t feel that I must read them all, or that keeping them serves no purpose if left unread. Books will stay before my eyes; seeing them will lift my spirits, bring peace to my heart, and I’ll be able to carry on with my work properly. The peace and comfort of having books nearby is worth several times their price.
A kiss may send thrills through the soul, and kisses come easily enough—but do a beloved’s lips, poised at just that tantalizing distance, create any less of a shiver? Once consumed, all waiting and longing come to an end! The thirst for a kiss stirs a person more restlessly, more eagerly, more tremblingly than the comfort of the kiss itself. There are certain books whose very presence nearby—just knowing “they are here”—brings a joy worth lakhs. The spiritual value of books far exceeds their material price.
In one lifetime, how much does a person really acquire? How much accumulation actually follows the parallel of economic theory? The regret of not buying a book I could have bought—deliberately choosing not to—equals the weight of several deaths. I left that beloved book in the shop not for lack of money, but thinking: I won’t have time to read it, so what’s the point of buying it? And all day long my mind gnawed at itself with longing for that book, or from its absence. To calm such a restless mind surely costs far less than the price of the book. Why nurture a burden that money can easily resolve? Even traveling great distances just to catch a glimpse of one’s beloved may be costly in time and money, but it’s never meaningless. Everyone noticed the wasteful expense of buying books, but no one ever cared about the mind’s needs. What simpler way is there to gladden the heart? When books are near, when I can see them, when I can turn their pages—what boundless, infinite peace!
I bought a book; perhaps I’ll never read it, but why should I spend whatever time I have left suffering from not being able to buy it? At least during the time I’m alive, let me truly live! The peace bought with money works overtime in living, adding considerably to one’s lifespan. How easily one can buy extra time simply by buying books! I often think: money is the cheapest bargain! To live and survive at such low cost—imagine that! Even in the pages of the most inexpensive books lie the carefree addresses of precious happiness.
I believe in the philosophy of buying books to increase confidence, strength, courage, peace, and comfort. Still, some regret lingers. I am more a buyer than a reader. Books are purchased frequently, read rarely. Books accumulate on shelves, not in my head. Helplessly I gaze at my library and think: O God, if you’ve given me life, then please give me some lifespan for reading books too. In this world you kept me dead for the sake of birth—at least for the sake of death, let me live a little.
Reflection: Ninety-three.
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Saraswati Puja falls just before Valentine’s Day. What divine play, what cosmic ‘hint’ from God! During this worship, many seek their future Lakshmi. Some even find her; or find Narayan (Lakshmi’s consort). Only Saraswati can place her sister’s husband in another woman’s embrace. Blessing as a boon! Only in this worship can the devotion to one goddess yield the grace of another. Lakshmi’s favor through Saraswati’s blessing! Through the goddess of learning’s magnificence, the devotee’s (true) heart’s desire is fulfilled in all sixteen arts! Ah, how wondrous!
Such beauty in the Mother’s image! Ah, how exquisite! Half woman she is, half imagination. Yet the Saraswatis of this earthly realm—I don’t see such beauty in them! Should we then conclude that man (the sculptor) is sometimes a greater artist than God? . . . . . . . No, not always. Beauties as lovely as the images have also been sent to this earthly realm. Such girls are sent to this world with a great assignment in hand. To drive many boys mad, then go off to the home of one truly mad boy. A girl who doesn’t prefer the mad type—why would she even bother to be beautiful?
Whatever the case, all this is mere soliloquy. He who can express himself becomes the father, he who cannot becomes the uncle. This father-uncle conflict will never end. The tongue-tied have fallen flat on their faces before the eloquent through the ages. This is the rule, this is destiny. The most ironically selfless act in this world is to hum cheerfully upon seeing another’s beloved, even on the most scorching, terrible, endlessly burning days … “My entire cloudy day of rain I gave to you” ……….. Grain in Ram’s granary, song in Sam’s throat. What desire! Fate is perverse!
There are even more tragic circumstances. Some broken relationships that shattered before they could even be mended—gazing at those, the procession of sighs grows longer. The meaning of such relationships: sitting in intense anticipation with the ego “Why should I speak first?” in one’s head, seeking relief from fatigue through long, pointless Facebook statuses, finally finding eternal freedom in a small word: she found someone, found him! And I found the fragrance-color-taste of jackfruit leaves! (Oh, what joy in sky and breeze…)
The fool doesn’t birth this pain on foolish Facebook, but stores it sorrowfully in the heartbook and gives it away. The given-away pain keeps growing tathaithai. In all such selfless acts, God remains strangely indifferent, detached, unconcerned. The fruits of action are merely the Creator’s jest.
In this world, alas, whomever I desire has a boyfriend-husband……..
The pain of being spurned without loving is sharper than the pain of being spurned after loving.
What can be done! All is destiny! Say, brother, mabhaiḥ mabhaiḥ, the age of uncles has come… May those who are happily alone with themselves during this worship be peacefully alone with someone during the next worship. May the scholarly pursuits of all bachelors in the world dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge culminate in an encounter with the goddess of wealth. Om shanti!
(Written before some Saraswati Puja)
Thought: Ninety-nine.
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Who else would mock you if not friends? Yes, friends always mock. Behind your back or right in front of everyone. When they mock you in public, they do so in such a way that everyone can clearly grasp the intimacy of your friendship. They will mock you, certainly. But if someone else attacks you, they’ll shield you with their own chest. They generously praise all your good deeds too. Even when the entire world turns against you, they’ll stand by you without getting into debates about whether you’re right or wrong. So they’ll mock you a little. It’s their privilege. There’s no point getting angry about it.
However………..
There are some friends who won’t spare even a small word of praise when they see you do something good. (It’s not as if your ‘good deed’ escaped their notice.) But the moment they see something that could belittle you or make you look bad in everyone’s eyes, they’ll pounce on the opportunity to tear you down. (Look! This didn’t escape their notice. So are they only blind when it comes to seeing good things? Or do they prefer to go blind whenever it suits them?)
These too are friends. They probably won’t harm you that much. But they envy you, and given the chance, they likely speak ill of you behind your back. They won’t become your enemies; they’ll remain friends. However, they accomplish two terrible things entirely through their subconscious minds, unknowingly or unwittingly. First: they help turn those who haven’t yet become your enemies—who merely dislike you a little in their hearts—into actual enemies. Second: they push back your enemies who were beginning to forget their enmity and trying to think of you as a friend, or entertaining such thoughts, back to their previous hostile positions. Criticism of you from your friend carries more weight than praise. Such a friend is capable of causing more damage than an enemy. So beware of them. Envy and teasing are never the same thing.
Reflection: Ninety-five.
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You cannot write whatever you please. This is a terrible predicament. For those whose writing many people read, writing becomes something that must be done with considerable thought. Not that one must always think so much. Those who write naturally write to please their readers’ minds, even unconsciously while writing. They know what will make readers happy. Our beloved Humayun Ahmed would sit down to write with absolutely nothing in mind. Whatever came to his head, he would write down in the first line. The rest would flow naturally. Words are like little blue butterflies—fluttering about, darting here and there. When you try to catch them, they refuse to be caught. You must love them, cherish them—sometimes even more than a sulking lover—only then do they surrender themselves. When reading the prose of Joy Goswami or Shankha Ghosh, one almost refuses to believe there’s no trap for catching words. Modern poetry emerged from Baudelaire’s pocket. Was that pocket loaded with the thought that we readers would love certain ideas, embrace them fondly? ‘Now is the time to be drunk! Instead of becoming time’s oppressed slave, be intoxicated, without pause. With wine, poetry, or virtue—whatever you prefer.’—to draw such an irrefutable truth from the heart to the surface requires tremendous courage! Yes, only a Baudelaire could issue such a call. Whether poetry walked holding Jibanananda’s hand, or Jibanananda walked holding poetry’s hand—rather than analyzing this, it’s far more pleasant to spend night after night in the intense spell of some camp. There are more such things. Let it be, I’ll stop.
Writing for readers is actually writing for oneself. If readers don’t love it, the next piece will naturally be delayed. Why do writers write? Let me speak of myself. Why do I struggle so hard to write? For two reasons. Because you give likes, and because you call my writing good. Otherwise, would I write? What would I write? I would write less. I would write differently. Of course, whatever I produce is merely Facebook posts. Because you graciously honor them by calling them ‘writing,’ I dare say this. Rabindranath Tagore said, “I need to use the toilet.” Shocked? Why, friend? Did Rabindranath spend all day only dispensing wisdom? Even great people need the bathroom, and they too must be allowed to express this. Not just their maxims, dear friend, dear beloved, sometimes let them use the toilet too…
Yet I don’t tell everyone everything—it’s not even possible. Like now, I have a high fever, but I tell no one. Feeling very down, but I don’t share it. Sprained my ankle, dying of pain, but don’t feel like mentioning it. I say only as much as can be said. What does anyone gain from my suffering? Suffering is not for broadcasting, it’s for bearing. Sharing suffering doesn’t always reduce it; sometimes its value diminishes too. My suffering is precious to me. Who can pay its price? Who has such wealth? I often hum a song by Jatileshwar Mukhopadhyay: Where is the rich man who can buy my dreams? Where is the color that will blend with my watercolor? (Anyone wanting to hear this song must listen to it in Shreya Bandyopadhyay’s voice. I bet after hearing it, you’ll simply want to love Radha. The magical afterglow of that song will surely scramble your head!)
I’ve seen many people who can write down whatever comes to mind. Have you read Jagadish Gupta’s stories? Or Sandeep Chattopadhyay’s diary? Even in Milan Kundera’s novels, the protagonist does whatever he pleases (take it however you will—whatever he wants). How effortlessly Kundera titles one section of his novel Life Is Elsewhere: “The Poet Masturbates!” Or consider the audacious, fluid narration of the protagonist’s psychosomatic adventures in Sartre’s Nausea! What would you call that? Doesn’t such unflinching artistic arrangement send shivers through your entire body? Have you read Waiting for Godot? Reading it will transform your entire philosophy of life. There’s no greater handbook for taking life simply. It’s one of the few books I’d be willing to take with me into island exile. Thinking of it makes me wonder: what harm would come from writing ‘whatever comes to mind’ like that? Why don’t I just try writing a bit! I received life’s most profound lesson from Macbeth: “Life… is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” Life’s only significance is that life has no significance at all. All this striving amounts to nothing. We are all waiting for Godot, always waiting. Who is Godot? What does he look like? What would happen if we found Godot? No one knows. No one has ever found Godot, and no one ever will. What is life? Life is the honest account of everything we do and everything we don’t do. Who are we? Idiots! I’m an idiot, you’re an idiot, those who call you and me idiots are also idiots. Thinking this way makes me feel like just writing whatever I want to write. Just calling someone a “son of a bitch” if I feel like calling them that. Just looking a little at whatever I want to see. Just eating a bit of ash if I feel like eating it. Just saying “I love you” to whomever I want to say it to, whether they love me back or not. Why must one receive love in order to give love? I feel like tearing off and hurling away this imposed gentleman’s mask. Like Sunil, I want to say: sometimes I feel like breaking a few rules, like breaking glass bangles… Not everything can be broken, nor should it be. Nothing great has ever been written by attacking any community, belief, ideal, custom, or culture, and nothing ever will be. Literature is merely a mirror of life. And the meaning of life is: Live and let live. How did you know you were right? I’ve spent all these years quite happily with my mistakes. I can spend the rest the same way. No big deal! Life is short, after all!
Well, have you noticed that I’m just writing whatever comes to mind? Should I stop? What if I don’t? What will happen? I am what I am! See if it suits you! If it does, welcome; if not, goodbye. Whatever else I may be, I cannot be a hypocrite. Better to be a scoundrel than to be a hypocrite. I say this often, and I believe it when I say it! To me, the most offensive curse word in the world is: hypocrite. I’m someone who lives in the world of the moment. One can spend life simply by following the Gita’s central message: Whatever happened, happened for the good. Whatever is happening, is happening for the good. Whatever will happen, will happen for the good. There’s a Spanish saying I’m very fond of: Que sera, sera. Meaning, Whatever was, was. Whatever is, is. Whatever will be, will be. What will be, will be. What’s the point of all this thinking? Has life suddenly come to a standstill? Let it! In the meantime, let me try living a little and see how it feels!
Thought: Ninety-six.
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Just the other day there was a “crushalysis” (crush + analysis—my invented euphonic compound) happening on my wall. Today let me tell you about a sweet crush from my intermediate life. (By intermediate, I mean what refined folks call HSC.)
Those of us who passed intermediate in 2002 or before were truly fortunate. We had the opportunity to study English prose and poetry. We encountered some absolutely wonderful literary pieces—what a marvelous chance that was. Those among us who were a bit more enthusiastic would read all the prose and poetry in the entire book (whether they were in the syllabus or not). They had been selected with great care. Even now, when I flip through that textbook, that anthology strikes me as exceptionally well-curated. That’s how my classical literary education began. (I scored 140 in English in intermediate. Now don’t wrinkle your noses, you youngsters! The system was different in our time. Back then, we weren’t automatically entitled to marks just for taking the exam. We had to earn them. My 140 was quite possibly the board’s highest!) Many of our texts were simplified and condensed, but I always tried to ensure that my reading of prose and poetry was faithful to the original. For instance, when reading “The Ancient Mariner,” I read Coleridge’s original text of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” from a guidebook by Dr. S. Sen (or was it Ramji Lal?). And so much more like that. I’d spend hours at the public library taking notes. How many quotations I read in those days! That was the time for memorizing quotations! Through this pretext, I ended up reading many books of English literature. I’d buy Ramji Lal and Dr. S. Sen’s guidebooks from the market and read the honors texts. They taught at Delhi University. Ever since then, I had wanted to study English literature at Delhi University after passing intermediate. Alas! Where did that lead? Fate wanted to drag me into the inner chambers of that fool’s box, and I, poor soul, wandered the corridors of that expensive professional education only to escape somehow through a window! I graduated in computer engineering but never became an engineer. That was my protest against being forced into engineering. For many in our generation, the old intermediate syllabus played a huge role in creating a love for literature. Today’s young people will never find those gems unless they have genuine interest in seeking them out. Sitting in the public library, taking notes hour after hour, the intense love that was born for the English language and English literature—I remain grateful for that love even today. Literature never grabbed me by the throat; with tender affection, it touched lips to eyes. I still feel that deep, faithful touch.
As I was saying, I mean, about crushes. We had a poem in our curriculum: The Solitary Reaper, by Wordsworth. I would recite it and secretly fall in love with that reaper. Along with it, I would read the same word-magician’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.” I would mix in Herrick’s “To Daffodils.” Those wonderful fusions are never to be forgotten. Those were the days of silently loving all the solitary reapers of the world. Days of floating away in the melancholy-tinged imaginary music of her nightingale’s voice. I would read that poem and feel that distant peasant girl deep in my heart. Ah! Those days of adolescent infatuation! In that 1807 poem, Wordsworth still makes us feel, “The music in my heart I bore, / Long after it was heard no more.” In 1845, Longfellow changed the tune slightly and sang, “And the song, from beginning to end, / I found again in the heart of a friend.”
…………… No, after many years I met that beloved again. Those who have seen Roman Polanski’s movie ‘Tess’—didn’t any of them think of the Reaper even once upon seeing that beautiful peasant woman in the film? I certainly did. I laughed to myself repeatedly and was delighted to remember: I beheld, I beheld her. So many years have aged, yet this wonderful woman remained in that same eternal form!
Those who have read The Solitary Reaper, please tell me after watching ‘Tess’—do you experience such crush-feelings (crush + feelings)?
Reflection: Ninety-seven.
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The nature of public expectation is strangely unseemly. When someone’s relatives, friends, or acquaintances are engaged in providing services or business, they sit expecting free service or service at reduced rates. Yet they should expect quick and the very best service. This way one’s self-respect remains intact, and the person providing the service or selling goods is neither annoyed nor embarrassed.
Despite having the means, if you don’t pay the doctor properly, the illness doesn’t heal; if you don’t pay the teacher properly, somehow a path opens for disproportionately high expenses later. You can certainly ask for favors from someone, but not at their inconvenience. Those who expect free service despite being capable seem to me like characterless, spineless creatures. There’s another thing. The notion that you can get good service for less money is often wrong. Rather than taking free or cheap mediocre or just-passable service from close people, it’s better to pay more and get good service from distant professionals. Of course, if you don’t pay properly, the service might sometimes become just-passable due to lack of sincerity. That’s bound to happen! What can you do if free jaggery tastes bitter?
If you always show someone selfless kindness, they will eventually begin to think that receiving favor is their right and showing favor is your duty. Not only will they fail to express gratitude, but they may even display a certain indifference toward you. There are some fools who don’t even know how to say thanks. Therefore, it’s better sometimes not to make another’s path easier, but to let them understand the difficulty of the journey. The person who places no value on being shown the way—let them remain helpless from time to time. For those who conflate a generous heart with a weak heart, why not keep all the doors of your heart firmly closed?
Reflection: Ninety-eight.
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My two-year-old niece. One evening, eager to introduce her to Rabindranath, I showed her an abstract-type portrait of Rabindranath with a white watermark on a blue background—the kind you can’t quite tell is actually Rabindranath. While braiding her adorable hair and gently tugging at her soft, fair little nose, I said, “Sweetheart, look here, this is Rabindranath.”
She rested her tiny chin on my knee, curled up like a kitten, widened her eyes, and asked, “Uncle, does it bite?” The expression of infinite wonder on her face was unmistakable.
I kissed my niece and burst into loud laughter. I was suddenly so amused that I couldn’t stop laughing at all.
Seeing me, my niece became even more astonished. Spreading her tiny hands in both directions and swaying her little head, she came right up to my nose and asked with boundless curiosity in her babbling voice, “Is it a ghooooost? Uncle, does it bite? It won’t bite meeeee…?!”
Thank goodness I had gone through all the trouble to introduce this little one to ghosts. We don’t want boring children who aren’t afraid of ghosts. Whatever anyone may say, those whose childhood lacked the fear of ghosts—did they even have a childhood? Ah! Without this ghost, where would I have found today’s beloved Bhutendranath Thakur?
May all of you who read this reflection be blessed with a visit from Ghost Thakur in your beds tonight. I pray that ghosts possess each and every one of you this very night!