Little boy, please don't become an old man

Who says only Enid Blyton can write about ideal child and not me? My story is a KISS- Kept It Short and Simple.

Many many years ago (Yes, many) there was an ideal, cutest and sweetest boy, he was smart yet silent. When he went to school, everyone liked him a lot.

But he was more famous among his female teachers. One of them, once kissed him too… Ouch! No one liked it, they were jealous.

He grew up, and grew a moustache too… As usual, like a brilliant student he studied and got a nice job, worked hard and left to some stupid country. After all, he took off his moustache in that country. Never mind, he still looked a hunk!

But there's something that makes him special. Unlike us, he gets younger by a few years, every year on this day… It’s his birthday.

It has been too damn beautiful to know the ideal boy. Wish him all the reasons in the world, of the universe, from the moon, stars and the sun to smile - today and always.

between heart and heart

Life is like that… seen in an old Reader’s Digest edition. True! Sometimes it gives you things things you don't want. It unfolds mysteries and folds back many truths.

Some truths are painful… Not as painful as the one truth, death. When I was in std 6th, my sister’s friend’s brother died in a fatal accident. Back then I wondered how his mom was still alive. She is still alive because life is like that.

When we’re preparing for our 12^th exams, one of my closest friends lost her younger brother while he went on a school picnic. I was still hoping and was almost sure of him coming back. The truth was he was dead. A month later, when I visited her place, her mom treated me the way she always treated me… a same warm hug. That’s why they say: No soul shall have a burden laid on it greater than it can bear.

Many many years back, may be in pre-school… I remember going to a friend’s place for lunch, she was the only friend I had then. Vaguely that I remember, there was a small gathering and some photo sessions too. She left to Mumbai the same evening. When she didn’t come back in next few weeks, I started asking why? My parents, my sister and my teachers kept saying she would soon come back. I started believing them, so much so that even today I find it hard to accept the truth. My friend died of cancer soon after she reached Mumbai. What makes us hopelessly optimistic? I don’t know, but whatever keeps you happy!

Little that I know about 'truth' is, it can’t always be a great magic... dreams, hopes, silence and untruths can be

from these thousand of "me's"

What do we do when we are forced to read, not text books but novels… of a language that you can speak, but can’t read or write properly. I read! Apparently, this month is the “paap khandan” month, so I’m in the sin cleaning spree. Listening to all ‘good’ advice and ‘good’ suggestions, and of course finished reading one from that pile.

The book is all about Delhi and my saving grace too J I loved it! Took me back to Delhi days… memories! “Dad, why not St. Mary’s in Shilliong? It’s a good college, I would still be away from home na?” I asked. Mom was just against the idea of having me a drive away from home. In between, we already made two trips to Delhi and didn’t take admission. Finally when I took admission in DU, came back to Guwahati with a hope, they might consider my case and let me be home. The absolutely dumb kid had to go out to learn the tricks of this world. My last words of plea were full of tears, “Dad, anywhere in Guwahati plz plz.” The negotiation was going almost in my favour before my mom brought in the “condition.” “If you want to be here, you are NOT going to St. Mary’s? You are going to X College.” (I won’t name the college, but the college was for Janitors). I was still fine by that. Relatives and neighbours said, she made her parents older and poorer in fifteen days. I know.

I left and successfully studied to become a smart kid! Thanks Maa. I owe it all to Delhi. The 'good’ advice and ‘good’ suggestions were always ‘good’. Later, in Bangalore when I tried defying them, I suffered.

I became self-dependant too, applied my first lesson of self-dependency on my first date. As my feminism was at peak those days; I took my oldest crush to Nizamuddin and footed the bill from my first earning from BCL. We re-composed a folk-song “Humko lootan ko ayehe… Nizamuddin water contains 70% ‘bravery’. Then I started going to St. Stephen’s regularly and sat quietly in discussions and seminars.

Last year in Bangalore, when I wasn’t I was, I became racist of worst degree. This year, when I needed to become who I was, my St. Stephen’s days from Delhi came handy.

My love for dargah of Khwaja Nizamuddin Auliya remained, even today, when I break down in search of solace… I know that’s the only place for my peace. Ecstasy!

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You're covered with a thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quiteness is the surest sign
that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.

Rumi

It’s about finding children for families or families for children?

Buddha said: When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky. Mashallah!

When I was sitting at the Bangalore airport, two months back on my way home, I met a doctor, little older than daddy. A devotee of Satya Saibaba and a surgeon ( can’t remember exactly). My flight was delayed, so was his to Mumbai. We were generally talking of make-no-sense topics; life, how-to-deal-with-a-cranky-mom, getting wiser at a higher cost, faith etc. But this man made them interesting to me.

The NRI doctor and his Dutch wife have adopted a son, may be almost 30 years back from a place in North India (let me not exactly remember the name). Later, when the son visited his birth place, he became emotional… Surely his doctor father had the perfect way to describe it. It's not blood, it's belief.

Be not, faint of heart, and grieve not:
for you are bound to rise high
if you open your heart to believe!
The Quran.

The morning after I reached home, I was trying to save my cheeks from kisses! When I couldn’t escape those few, I tried recovering my skin with salt-water! Surprisingly, another aunt of mine was worried about something else than k(p)issing me.

Reason: The Orphanage (Just opposite our old residence) has denied giving her friend the baby they chose earlier. Shucks! Well not this, even disgusting was, apparently… they offered them a different baby who was mal-nourished. “Sister superior is such a b*****, she thinks my friend is a fool? She exactly remembers the baby, her husband too,” told my aunt. After all they are buying ‘something’… why not settling for perfection?

Just when I was trying to understand "Emotion" as the most worthless of English dictionary. I knew "perfection" was picking up. Who can laugh at the sky?

Passing the legacy of "calling for bandh"

Someone wrote on NE journo forum, “what the hell” in reaction to tomorrow’s Axom Bandh. Shyamanta Kashyap, President of Assam Welfare Society, has called for the Bandh. Whose footsteps is the 19-year-old Kashyap following? No prizes for guessing his daddy’s name. Yeah! The son of former CM of Axom, Mr. Prafulla Kumar Mahanta. The man who entered almost all levels of crime as a CM. From being accused as philanderer to Tea controversy and many more. In my knowledge, even as a school going child, I remember the State saw worst days in his tenures as the CM of Axom.

The fuss that he created during the Assam Movement was for power, with little or no public interest involved, he made fool of the entire community. Apparently, Mahanta’s followers even spat on a famous academician’s face for advocating English language and showing reasons on why we still needed English as the medium of instruction in government schools. Did we know his son, Shyamanta Kashyap, who’d called for the Bandh tomorrow went to Delhi Public School, New Delhi? Never knew DPS taught Assamese. Like his dad always preached regionalism and took utmost advantage of it. S*** is not the word for such hypocrisies. Shyamanta’s claim to fame is his NGO (Assam Welfare Society). But what would be the fate of our State, where NGOs and politician's son call bandh to launch to political career? This is not learning politics. Worse than that, this is passing the scoundrel’s legacy!

Surprisingly, 7^th April is the Foundation Day of ULFA (United Liberation Front of Assam). I felt terrible when a few people, (called themselves as citizens of an elite society) are trying to defend tomorrow’s bandh as a bandh called by the ULFA. This is not in defense of ULFA. This is in defense of Jr. Mahanta infant. It's in his gene; like father, like son… he is bringing back the "bandh culture".

But also like Abraham Lincoln said: You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

I mean to say goodbye

“Scratch your head, go mad, shout like hell, do watever it takes to get going, but get going,” my counselor turned astrologer said. Stars won’t help, if you want to be fooled. God gave you brains along with those stars:) Probably he wasn’t wrong when he said who can help me if I choose to be cheated and fooled? Is this a killing feeling? Will tell you what killing is.

Sometimes life hits you hard, and you don’t know how to overcome. The term with practicality loses, advice and suggestions sound irritating, you spend sleepless nights and anxious days. So, where is the solace?

Strategizing in real world? There isn’t any strategy to live life, since it’s not a game. But one last time, I want to follow a strategy of ‘Believing’. Believing in what I hate to believe! Believe that the basic facts of love were basic flaws. Believe that no human can be God and they lie tooJ

The killing is chewing lies coated with fleeting happiness. I definitely want to ‘believe’ in all the bad words now: hate, cheat, lie… donno. I will fight memories, but not these words again.