Woh kagaz ki kashti...

"Tum chale jaoge to sochenge,

Humne kya khoya, humne kya paaya,

Zindegi dhoop, tum ghana saaya

Tumko dekha to iye khayal aaya..."

I was just an average kid from 80s. I was from a very middle class family, where the television belonged to the whole locality and VHS tapes were still in fashion. I had a bunch of cousins who were in their youth at that point of time and they liked music. They had a two-in-one and some cassettes. One of their distant relatives used to sing ghazals and thumri. Once or twice, she sang in the AIR Calcutta A. That was some feat then. Not everyone was a singing star performing in TV shows, radio channels or pubs. Pubs were considered low culture, TV had just one channel and radio was state run. Marriage functions were great places to hear some original voices. But Hindi film songs were considered too vulgar. That's just to give you the idea why the ghazal made a way in the middle class milieu and became an integral part of the middle class identity. Later, while doing my masters thesis, I'll find out "classical music was too heavy for the middle class, Hindi film songs were too lowly. The pop-ghazal had the perfect balance." 

   I'm grateful too my cousins for introducing me to a lot of music I'd later develop a taste for. Little did they know how music gets engraved in our mind. I was just a school boy. It is among those bundles of audio cassettes I heard Jagjit Singh's voice for the first time, along with Chitra Singh. I can't remember the name of the album, but it was a compilation of film hits by the pair. The cassette inlay had a black background with the face of the pair and had the song that'll become one of my all time favourites. At that point I had no idea what it meant, nor did I understand the musical technicalities. I recall now, I somehow retained the memory of the sound. It was the 80s, music came in magnetic audio tapes, films were in Eastman-colour, something called "Parallel Cinema" was still there, Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah, Raj Babbar, Farukh Sheikh, Amol Palekar were stars of the 'intellectual' middle class, Jagjit-Chitra or Bhupinder Singh were preferred voices for music.

   As I grew up to my own teenage during the 90s, cassettes were still in use. Digital technology did come in, but it was still too costly for the middle class. Some of my friends had them, but they were a still a little more revered to be treated as entertainment gadgets. So we had our Walkmans, two-in-ones, tape-decks... The wealthier could afford a Music system, that had two cassette players and a CD player. One of the cassette players could also record anything from the other cassette, the CD or the FM radio. Oh yes, private FM channels had already come in, but they were not as many or as talkative as today and their reception depended on the position of the antenna! Being able to record was quite a technological challenge. You had to time the two devices, push the switches in the right order and be able to handle them. It demanded practice and efficiency. If you missed something, it meant a series of rewinding and fast forwarding and doing it again. Buttons have not appeared and switches had to be pushed and not touched. I was kind of a techie already. So I mastered the art. One of my close friends had a music system and I had the urge. Initially, we tried that to copy whole cassettes. We were simply unaware of the term "piracy"! Then we started recording stuff for plays at school and locality. But the triumph was the compilation cassette. We sourced a variety of songs from  multiple origins, recorded them in a well thought order and gifted them to the person we wished to impress. CDs were too costly and too complicated to burn. In fact, the cassette was just the right size. A CD would've provided too much space. The number of songs on a compilation cassette could range from 8-12. All that effort just to say a three letter word. Hell, I miss the 90s! Needless to say I was quite a champion of it, doing it for myself and for my friends as well. It was the 90s, music was changing, it was the time for remixes and remakes. Cinema was changing, so were its preferred stars. But, there were a few songs that would appear on almost all such compilation cassettes.

   That was the second time I encountered Jagjit Singh's voice and fell in love. My friend could afford the original cassettes, I would just record. Many of our teenage afternoons were spent listening to them. He was on a singing spree. My friend predicted he'll become silent in a few years. He didn't, and thank god he didn't! As I grew up my music changed. I shifted from one genre to another, but somehow I always felt comfortable in melody and in baritone. The romantic intonations and the brilliance of words somehow kept going with me. I grew older, and after quite some experiments with music, a few years back I started coming back to Hindustani Classical music. Once again ghazal was my way in. As I struggled with the concepts and grammar of it, I downloaded a whole collection of Jagjit Singh's works. Those who understood Hindustani music better than me, told me he isn't good enough. But then, one just doesn't have to be good to make one feel at peace. Before the technical knowledge comes the inexplicable liking for it. That's why when a popular artist fades away, they take too many memories with them. Too many to consist an era.

   I had an affinity for Ghalib's poetry. I don't know why, I think I can trace it back to the same period when the TV serial on his life was being telecast. There is something about that period, that determines my middle class existence, my cultural roots. I now know there are a lot of things about it that's not politically correct or very mediocre, but I refuse to grow old without my childhood and teenage reality. In the past few weeks I've had a new friend. That is not so normal given the person I've become these days. She has re-introduced me to the world of Urdu poetry. In one of our very early conversations she text me some lines from Ghalib. I had downloaded all episodes of the Mirza Ghalib TV serial from torrents a few months back. It is the new millennium, everything's on the internet, poetry is available as e-books, music can be transferred and heard through phones, every computer is a film archive. As I am blogging this very personal and unusual obituary, I'm thinking I'll listen to the complete works of Jagjit Singh once more, and fall in love again.

Memories of Blue Dendrobiums

Ever bought flowers for someone? Someone whom you love and one who loves flowers? Not those occasional mandatory stuff. Bought flowers because you really felt like, bought it to give it to someone? Probably one of those few times, because everyone else you ever had in your life wasn't really fond of flowers, or you never had the courage to buy them flowers, ever...

Blue dendrobiums are not really blue. They are in fact purple. Since blue looks nice for almost all occasions (according to a florist's website!) the purple Bombay dendrobium is dyed with blue colour, so they can have a purplish blue tinge. Which in fact, looks kind of nice and fit for all occasion. All that is beautiful is fake, all that is romantic must be a short lived illusion. I bought them once and sent them to the one I thought would appreciate them.

Did I love her? Like hell I did!

Hell it was... definitely for me, partly for her too, or so I assumed. Met her on a cyber-trip in search of a stranger. You all know it, and if you're already a blogger like me, you must have had chat-room strangers, early social networking strangers and probably the more sophisticated kind by now. If you haven't, I pity you! So the chitchat grew into casual talks, text messages and phone calls, eventually we met. Our professional lives crossed path, so did our list of friends. We could've met earlier, as we found out later, but fate it seems, never runs out of the sense of irony!

Did she love me? She said so, "not in the way you love me.." she told me. She realised that rather late though. For me, the helpless romantic I am, it was almost insufferable. Met her when she was about to get married, after a long courtship. There was nothing wrong with their companionship. I met the guy, liked him a lot. But I certainly did not want her to get married, not to him. I've been the anti-marriage, anti-family kind of person for long. Age it seems, I felt like marrying her. The funny thing with experiences of life is you are never mature enough. Just the moment you think you've been there, done that, something absolutely new and mind boggling comes up. Life is what happens to you, when you're busy planning other things. Or so they say...

It could've happened that way. But I was never ready to let her go. So we kept in touch. I had definite reasons for it, and let me assure you they were never very innocent or moral. I still don't know why she did that. We went to trips together, fought. Didn't see each other for days. She once took 30 days to reply to one of my texts. She had her reasons, I guess. But then, all you can do is to assume things. As I once understood when I was a student, and later told my students of media, there is nothing called truth, there are only perceptions! I almost stand corrected now, there are only assumptions. We are taught to believe things, have faith. Then comes academics, teaches you to be a skeptic, teaches you to ask questions. And then, if you think like me, you'll discover, when you ask something, most of the time the answer dangles there, in between truth and lie, with a probability of inclining to any which way at any given instance of time. Truth is, therefore, whatever you wish to believe! In the beginning you are so startled to understand this, you almost refuse to succumb to it. But then slowly, it settles in. After a point, you happily believe whatever you wish to believe and continue your happily ever after.

Not a skeptic like me. One of the (dis)advantages of being a skeptic is you see so many versions of the same 'truth' from such vicinity that it feels too close for comfort. But let me keep the analyzing part at bay for a while. After quite a considerable amount of time in her marriage, she realised I wasn't as bad as I seemed in the beginning and I was in fact kind of a nice, harmless guy. I can be a good friend and the occasional shoulder to cry on, when things don't go according to plan. People around me, told me she's using me. I myself felt so on a few occasions. When she felt no one loves her, she asked me if I still love her. Asked me to reassure her that at least I still love her, if not anyone else. I did. But when I felt the same way, she told me it's not a good time, because she's disturbed. Never cared to ask, how I felt when she asked me for love then content, she went back to her man. O she was faithful to him, give and take a night or two...

Point is, I was willing to submit, willing to overlook such anomalies, such lack of respect. You're not supposed to expect things when you're in love. But then, you do expect things.. don't you? She took from me what she needed, because I was willing to give, fair enough. I said I didn't expect, she trusted me. Logical enough. On a logical plane, I can't blame her, nor do I wish to. So, when people told me she was using me, I said, may be I love to be used? But deep inside I knew, how I bled. Why I lost my sleep, why did I keep awake all night and cry, how I craved for her. Never in my life, someone hurt me this much. At times, I thought I'll end my life or her. But I knew that will never happen. I never had so much courage. I stayed out of touch for brief intervals of time, didn't help. I was the first one to help her when she was in trouble, almost all sorts. So, did she care for me? At times it felt she did.

I have a problem. I'm a believer in a skeptic's clothing. I almost believe everything someone tells me. I trust almost everyone and then I trust none. So when people told me she was using me, I trusted them. When she told me she wasn't I believed her. In this process continuous tensions from all sides, I lost too many things. Lost my valuable time for work, my concentration, my ability to think properly, my sleep, my energy, but most importantly I lost my ability to trust, anything and everything. Deep inside I eroded, silently, like a riverbed. My friends told me she was not the right one for me. Not that I didn't know. I always fall for women who are not "right" for me. Maybe this time I went too far. May be there are no right ones?

Towards the end of last decade, her marital problems scaled new heights. But then they subsided, probably for good. So she thinks at least. It was just a matter of time she joined her man in their new 'home'. But right before she did that, she managed to hurt me for one final time. She announced her departure rather dramatically. For once she made me fantacise she's coming back to my city, once and for all. But then I realised, rather painfully that she's not coming back, ever. It was the final goodbye. i still don't wish to blame her for anything she did or said to me.

May be her situations were such? May be she never loved me, may be she did? May be she wanted to, but couldn't? May be she actually used me? May be people are cruel enough to do so and forget? May be they are just helpless as I am? May be I was too desperate,selfish and insensitive to realise she couldn't have done anything else? Who knows? I felt happy about the good times spent together, I feel content with my little victories over the better man she was faithful to. I'm sorry that I almost ruined her apparently peaceful marriage. Sorry, that I stepped down from my disbelief in the marital institution for once and then found it almost impossible to get back to it. But as I bid her the final farewell, I realised I don't the answers to too many questions. I don't know for sure if blue dendrobiums can be kept on the tombstones of unnamed relations. Nonetheless, I'll offer one. I could have said adieu to her a long time ago, I didn't and as I recognise it's a late goodbye, I've learnt to let go...

Of loves gone by...

সকলই ফুরায়, ফুচ্‌কার প্রায়, পড়ে থাকে শালপাতা...

Where is my friend's home?

There is a film that goes by the same name. I love that one. But this is not a post about that film. Although this post and that film is somewhat remotely related, it's not an influence or provocation for writing this post.

One of the ill-effects of growing up is you have less friends. At some point you realise, the circle's shrinking. So, that way it isn't a post about losing friends or lost friends too. Neither is it a post about ageing, I'm done with that in an earlier post.

One of those days, when I feel I'm growing old and I've less friends to count on than I usually had. I came back from a pandal-hopping session. Incidentally it was again a Dashami, the last day of Durgapuja. But this one has nothing to do with Durgapuja, it could've happened to me anytime. It just happened that day. I was tired from walking in the scorching sun and overeating junk-food. As I reached home, I felt not like lying down but to make myself comfortable on the wide old chair in my room, that I had to bring out for my friends. Usually the chairs in my room are smaller ones, strictly for business purpose! This one on the contrary is a old one that allows not just sitting but 'leisure'. That word is in quotes, because I'll later toy with the idea. These days it's used as a heightened platform to keep useless things like unused clay pots, boxes of rejected shoes and stuff like that. The locality where I live has a water-logging problem. If it rains heavily for a few hours, rain water starts filling inside my house. That's why there's the need of such heightened platforms. That's the time when I realise how much junk simple living can produce and since you can't throw away anything for they may be needed for some unknown cause later, one has to learn the art of junk management too! Anyway, digressions apart, I had to bring that chair to my room, since my room turned into the private party spot for my friends during the pujas. I had less chairs to accommodate more friends. It turned out to be quite thought-provoking, the chair I mean. I'm planning to keep it here, but probably I wont be able to. It occupies too much space and anyway, saving your household from rainwater is much more important than fancy thought provocation!

(Confession: I stopped writing this post sometime back, wrote and published another sudden rush of feelings. I just didn't find words, gave it a serious thought to publish this one as my first unfinished post. Anyway, the point is, much has happened when it was on hold, the feeling has kind of faded away. So there will be discontinuities and forgotten promises, if any!)



So, when I was sitting on this chair with all my new, festive clothes on and my walking shoes scattered all over the place, my eyes half closed as an aftereffect of the tiredness of pandal-hopping and overeating lousy food, this thought occurred to me. It's been long, since I've been to a 'friend's home'. This does not mean that I don't have friends anymore or I don't visit their places. In fact, I do that regularly, sometimes overdo! But as I'm growing 30, so are my friends. Quite a few of them has got married, some with children. Others are too busy with their professional lives and busy keeping up their PR. These days we hardly meet and when we do for brief evenings, it's either in a coffee shop or a bar. Even when we meet at someone's home, it's a drinking spree.

The question is, What am I missing then? The warmth is still the same with my friends, at least that's the last thing I miss. The comfort is still the same, if not more. We don't have to steal/borrow/hunt food in the home refrigerator, we just buy that on the way or even better, we make a call and order stuff! There is one major change in the whole scene though. There's no one to 'bother' us these days. Most of my friends don't live with their parents anymore. Even if they do, parents know we've grown up and it's best for the interest of both to be non-interfering. I wonder, if the concept of 'interference' and 'bothering' has something to do with 'care' and 'belonging'. Coming to the big question, what is it that makes a home a "home"? What I really miss here is that time when I can drop in at some random friend's place, uninvited, even at the oddest hour. I don't have to call them before dropping in, because I know even if they are not home, his/her parents and extended family will be accommodative enough to allow me stay there, at my leisure! They will even call my friend, if possible and tell him/her to come back asap. They will take care that I feel at home and offer me water, food, entertainment and what not? I can spend lazy afternoons,days,evenings,till they push me back home. All for my own good though; they don't mind if I stay there, but they are worried that I'll get a good bashing from my parents if I return late! They don't mind if we keep each other's t-shirts or books or geometry-box for periods long enough to forget whom did it actually belong to, but they'll be very worried if I skip a tuition class or get a bad grade! We must lower our voices while calling each other those fancy abusive names and while talking about 'sex'! We must find ingenious ways to hide the fact that we've been smoking or bunked classes and went to a film.

Coming back to where I started, what do I actually miss then? Is it just the time? Is it that parental care? Is it that sense of belonging? Or is it something more abstract and obscure? Do I miss a certain ambiance? Or is it a concept of a space that I'm familiar to and call it a 'friend's home'? Is this just a nostalgia like any other or is there a more powerful yet undisclosed indication of a possible future? Or is it just a leisurely thought of a half-awakened mind, because it had nothing to do at that very moment, that very place and felt lonely?

If I knew the answers to any of these questions, this post wouldn't have been here...

hijibiji

ekdin ekta post likhbo, tate polayon lekha thakbe, kimba mrtiyu...

MOON-WALK-OVER

M-TV was showing it.
When we grew up, there was a channel called DD2.
It showed 2 hours of M-TV, from 4 to 6 in the evening, or something like that.
We were not allowed to watch such 'vulgarity!
But we did, who listens to 'don'ts' at the teenage?
One of the videos I remember is this one....



I wasn't a fan.
But some stars never "grow up".
Refuse the progress of time, by embracing death before his farewell concert. Never kneel down.
MJ is no more.
But more than the star, it means the end of an era for us.
An weird fear creeps inside me, feels like, the whole of our teenage is now part of history... dead.
Can't "Beat it"....

Epitaph

Shob bhalobasha chirkut-e likhe rekhe ekdin sagorer jol-e neme jabo...

nothing

"But love grows old,
and waxes cold..."