Ah Calcutta!

“You are going to my hometown! Kolkata is great” said Sahana when she heard that I was taking a flight to Kolkata in less than some two hours. Her eyes brightened. Kolkata is home to her, though she now lives in Dhaka. We were not sure of this trip even before 24 hours. One of our group members was rejected the visa making everything uncertain for everyone else. She got it the night before and the tour was on again. Others started by road the next morning; while I was held to witness the historical presence of one of my favorite (and one of the most outstanding) writers writing in English as he lectured at IUB on February the 22 nd . He is originally from the place I was going to. He is from Kolkata.

Amitav Ghosh has the capacity to detonate a grenade inside your mind. I admit that I was absolutely swept off my feet when I first came across The Shadow Lines. The narrative is so intricate yet powerful that for a very long time everything I read seemed utterly bland. For a very long time I was in a trance. I would only think of May who witnessed how the riotous mob cut open her lover’s throat; or, the anonymous narrator who hopelessly loved the girl he could never have. What tormented me most, however, was the longing of the narrator’s grandmother for Dhaka—her home—which had been callously cut off her life by the shadow lines of partition.

Every time I went to India after that, I could not help thinking of the invisible shadow lines of separation and of connection. I thought of it this time too. As I moved around Kolkata, I came across many people with a peculiar sense of longing for Bangladesh. One salesperson started calling me Boin instead of Didi and also started talking in a broken Barisal dialect when she realized that we are from the other side of the border. A friend of my brother kept talking about how much his father misses that part of Bengal and how he himslef doesn’t care a shit about that being born in Kolkata. I met my mother’s brother who has been living in India since 1964 and only has faint memories of Rajshahi. May be he has forgotten how his mother, my grandmother, looked 44 years back. She, now 84 years old and paralyzed from waist down, sometimes sobs “Debu, Debu” but soon her physical ailments overpower her sense of loss and she is pulled back to the reality. My grandma’s brother, a retired government officer, has a longing for Balihar, a remote village in Naogaon and his birthplace. He, nevertheless, understands that the Balihar of his imagination will not match with what he might see. Therefore, he doesn’t also want to puncture his mental picture.

We stayed in Kolkata for 3 days. It was fun for us girls; we did crazy shopping. The guys, however, had to remain satisfied with carrying our bags to the hotel. The steamy street food, the tana-rickshaws, the glitzy shopping malls, the mushrooming cineplexes and the tourists make Kolkata the olla podrida of colors and cultures. The flavor of internationalism is not altogether absent. But yet Kolkata remains different; different than all the other places that we might go to. It is a place with which we all share a love-hate relationship. We get angry why the hell we need visas to go there… it is not REALLY bidesh. . It is dirty like Dhaka yet it is lovable. After all, we share the same language if not the same nationality. There are so many shadow lines to connect us. Let’s not think for a while about the lines that separate. Ah Calcutta!

Leave Taking: Some Thoughts

It has been really interesting to observe how the decision of leaving can tie you up to that paticular place more strongly. As long as you live there, you really do not belong there. It's only when you leave you begin to relive the traces of the left behind zone. It is like childhood; you dont love it when you are a child. You learn to recognize the innocence after the innocence is lost. Or, It is like Youth-- one can only fully appreciate the beauty and the joys of it when s/he is past it-- a friend of mine told me once. It is, i guess, the eternal condition of human mind....a starange voyeurism towards the lost connections... an uneasy yearning for the irrecoverable past.

I'm being almost boringly nostalgic today because i'm taking a leave for good-- from two places that have played crucial parts in my process of growing up. We are shifting to a new house and im giving up my UIU job.

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It don't matter, anyhow
An' it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If you don't know by now
When your rooster crows at the break of dawn
Look out your window and I'll be gone
You're the reason I'm trav'lin' on
Don't think twice, it's all right

It ain't no use in turnin' on your light, babe
That light I never knowed
An' it ain't no use in turnin' on your light, babe
I'm on the dark side of the road
Still I wish there was somethin' you would do or say
To try and make me change my mind and stay
We never did too much talkin' anyway
So don't think twice, it's all right

It ain't no use in callin' out my name, gal
Like you never did before
It ain't no use in callin' out my name, gal
I can't hear you any more
I'm a-thinkin' and a-wond'rin' all the way down the road
I once loved a woman, a child I'm told
I give her my heart but she wanted my soul
But don't think twice, it's all right

I'm walkin' down that long, lonesome road, babe
Where I'm bound, I can't tell
But goodbye's too good a word, gal
So I'll just say fare thee well
I ain't sayin' you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don't mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don't think twice, it's all right

Coming Soon.............

BREAKING NEWS!! BREAKING NEWS !!!

Look forward to the lists to be uploaded on December the 31 st 2007

1. Things I will do in 2008
2. Things I will quit 2008
3. Books I will read in 2008
4. People I will love in 2008
5. People I will hate in 2008

These and many more…….Coming soon !!!

Don’t miss. So, watch out........

love,

sharmee

Rokeya Hall recollections

If you ask me what about Dhaka University I have enjoyed the most, I will probably say it is my illegal stays at Rokeya Hall. The hall authority tries their best to prevent illegal aliens (like me) even from entering into that land of gold. There is a three-fold security system; at the main gate, at the road leading to the dormitories and then at the gate of the dormitories. But hey we are bahadur bangalis; tougher than toughest immigration laws couldn’t prevent us from entering into the US and many other countries, what big deal is Rokeya Hall? Our Bengali brethren have set great examples of walking across deserts or swimming across oceans to reach to their coveted places – countries like Poland or Cyprus. Some have even tried to fly clinging onto the tyre or the propeller of the airplane to go to Dubai or Abu Dhabi. When we want to go somewhere, we GO there. It would have been a great disgrace if we failed to enter the hall. It really involved very little effort compared to the enormous travels our brothers have undertaken.

I could talk about the 101-ways-of-sneaking-in, but if that becomes public knowledge, the authorities will try to mend the loopholes and many illegal aliens like me will be deprived of the exquisite pleasure of that life. It is public interest that I am safeguarding. If you really want to know about it, I will give you some tips in private; tips that were given to me by a senior student (in private, of course).

[to be continued]

Death by Water

Dhaka never was so cruel as it seemed today.

just a few days back (last thursday, to be specific) the soft and loving winter sun enveloped me as i was walking down the posh streets of Baridhara. i did not walk for long, though i wanted to... he thought the destination was too far away to be reached walking. i boarded on a rickshaw with him.
i was enjoying the walk but he seemed more eager in reaching.

we both knew what reaching meant. we both knew reaching would force us into the dark and cold card-board-box i hate to be in. the journey was sweet... the destination-- bitter, bitter... oh life!

i have walked along these roads before...these roads had killed me then. they killed me again this time.

Dhaka was never so bleak as it is today.