"Charupaathh"

Why have I been blogging like a woman possessed over the last couple of days?

"Charu protignya koriyaa boshechhilo shey likhibe-Amol ke aashchorjyo koriya dibe; Mandar shohit taahar jey awnek probhed ey kawtha promaan na koriya shey chharibey na. Ei koydin bistawr likhiya shey chhniriya pheliyachhe. Jaaha likhite jaay taaha nitaanto Amol er lekhar mato hoiya uthey...Dekhile Amol nishchoi mone mone hashibe, ihaai kalpona koriya Charu shey-shawkol lekha kuti-kuti koriya chhniriya pukurer moddhye pheliya diyachhe, paachhe taahar ekta khawndo-o doibath Amol er haate aashiya pawre."

And yet, all I write, I do not keep to myself; do not shred and blow them away.
I publish.
In the secret hope that he will read. And like it as much as he likes her's. And proudly display it. Talk about it. And yet I know, he never will. And I am consumed with intense, insane jealousy. And anger. And hurt. I feel the hatred in my guts. It chokes my arteries. Numbs me. Makes me dizzy.



"Amol khanokaaler jannyo pawray khaanto dilo. Manda haashiya Charur uddeshhye ingeet korilo. Amol mone mone kohilo, 'Bouthaaner ey ki douraattmyo. Tini ki thhik koriyaa raakhiyachhen, aami tnaahari kreetodaash. Tnaahake chhara aar kaahakeo pawraa shunaite paaribo na. Ey jey bhoyaanok julum.'"


True. I know. I know how futile and misplaced even my jealousy is. After all, what right do i have over him? None. None whatsoever. Then why do tears well up inspite of myself, when i see a perfectly harmless, innocuous, even affectionate(when judged dispassionately) comment or wish...?


"Ki hoiyachhe taaha bawla shawkto. Amoni ki hoyechhe. Bishesh to kichhui hoy naai. Amol nijer nutan lekha prathome taahake na shunaiyya Manda ke shunaiyyachhe, ey kawtha loiyya Bhupatir kaachhe ki naalish koribe? ...Ei tuchchho byapaarer moddhye gurutawro naalsiher bishoy jey konnkhaaney lukaiyya achhe taaha khnujiya baahir kawra Charur pokkhe awshaddhyo. Awkaarone shey jey kyano ato odhik kawshto paaitechhe, ihaai shawmpurno bujhite naa paariya taahar kawshter bedona aaro baariya uthhiyaachhey."

It is I, who has always secretly nurtured the wish to publish his writings...it is I who has been trusted with their safekeeping ...it is I who has spent sleepless nights pouring over each letter, each alphabet, touching and caressing each blot of the pen, in the desire to know him better, in a bid to get a feel of him when i didn't know him...
These however matter not. For he does not belong to me. Nor I to him. Nor ever will. What possible 'odhikaar' may I claim over him? Especially now?
What claim, for that matter, did a much-married Charu have over Amol...?

I wonder...

"Haay, ki kukkhawnei ei shawmosto lekhalekhi aarombho hoiyachhilo."

"Goponey dekhechhi,
Tomar byakulo nayoney bhaabero khela.
Utawlo aanchol, elo-thelo chool, dekhechhi.
Jhawrer bela, goponey dekhechhi..."

Bombay, my sepia dreams...

"Aye Dil Hai Mushkil Jeena Yahan
Zara Hat Ke Zara Bach Ke, Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan

Kahin Building Kahin Traame, Kahin Motor Kahin Mill
Milta Hai Yahan Sab Kuchh Ik Milta Nahin Dil
Insaan Ka Nahin Kahin Naam-o-nishaan
Zara Hat Ke Zara Bach Ke, Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan

Kahin Satta, Kahin Patta Kahin Chori Kahin Res
Kahin Daaka, Kahin Phaaka Kahin Thokar Kahin Thes
Bekaaro Ke Hain Kai Kaam Yahan
Zara Hat Ke Zara Bach Ke, Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan

Beghar Ko Aawara Yahan Kehte Has Has
Khud Kaate Gale Sabke Kahe Isko Business
Ik Cheez Ke Hain Kai Naam Yahan
Zara Hat Ke Zara Bach Ke, Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan

Bura Duniya Woh Hai Kehta Aisa Bhola Tu Na Ban
Jo Hai Karta Woh Hai Bharta Hai Yahan Ka Yeh Chalan
Tadbeer Nahin Chalne Ki Yahan
Yeh Hai Bombay, Yeh Hai Bombay, Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan

Aye Dil Hai Aasaa Jeena Yahan
Suno Mister, Suno Bandhu, Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan
Aye Dil Hai Mushkil Jeena Yahan
Zara Hat Ke Zara Bach Ke, Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan."



Bombay. Bombay of the 50's. A place and time of which i was part of neither. And yet I have memories. Memories manufactured by celluloid dream merchants. Memories coloured by sepia polaroids.

A time of innocence. Even at its cynical best. Lost.
Really, who today, would lament,
"Kahin satta, kahin patta kahin chori kahin res
Kahin daaka, kahin phaaka kahin thokar kahin thes"?
Who would mourn,
"Kahin Building Kahin Traame, Kahin Motor Kahin Mill
Milta Hai Yahan Sab Kuchh Ik Milta Nahin Dil"?
Most would find it utterly risible! The more sensitive sorts, would, at most,look back at the olden times, heave a nostalgia-tinged sigh at the romance of yore...
And one can hardly blame them. Had the poet himself been around, he would have been bewildered and lost in his own city, probably chewing his words! Atleast the goons of his times were rooted in the city, not in some faraway Dubai, with nary an attachment with the throbbing pulse of Bombay, its jaan.

The 50's have gone. Taken away Bombay with it. Bombay of the Parsis; Bombay, whose own sound was that of the swish of the Arabian and the click-clock of the horse-hoof, whether on the derby field or on the phaeton down Marine Drive; Bombay that the film-wallahs were slowly turning into the magic-dom of tinsel town; Bombay, where high Anglicism coalesced easily with plaebian rusticity, both offshoots of the new industrial culture...
Lost. Gone forever. Dreadful sorry, Clementine.

Lovers

This has got to be one of my absolute favourites. Egon Schiele. I'm enchanted by almost all his paintings, but this one takes my breath away. So much conveyed with such minimalism!
Their bodies are far from what you would call 'in-shape'...but that is what, i think, makes it even more appealing and real; lends to it a warmth that you almost want to reach out and touch.
And their expressions...so, so in love,achingly so and yet helpless...lovers who are perhaps destined not to meet, to be together; a fate they are aware of, and have reconciled to...A post-coital scene, there seems to be no hurry, no rush to get back to the vagaries of life...The desire, the longing to quietly soak in the brief moment of togetherness, stripped of all inhibition and falsity, is beautifully conveyed. Not a stroke more, not a colour extra to mar the sombreness of the mood!

Chilekotha chhadey...

A "Dawsh foot by dawsh foot"-ish space, dark, God-ghost-forsaken, with a lone ladder and a loner of a lizard-Our Kingdom...yours, mine and ours...
As I led you by your hand up the stairs, I felt a spring in my steps, a ballerina swiftness...the concreteness of surroundings melting away to reveal wispy willowy cottony softness. White. Noiselessly white.
Someday maybe, two other souls will tiptoe up there, make the long-abandoned kingdom their own, sing love-n-lullabies and dance each other to the end of time...maybe they will frolic in the winter dust, make merry,and make each other some warm love to last many winters to come...maybe...
But you and I...wherever we are, we will know, it was our kingdom. And that is what it shall be. Always.

Disco Juliet

From the garish pout to the clingy tights, the broad spectacles to the suicide shade of blonde, the picturisation of the song Romeo and Juliet by Dire Straits is 80's all the way! The sound, uniquely Knopfler only adds to it.
My wonder years, my back pages...
The starkness of white combined with the loudest of colours to create, I think, the worst fashion phase! But who cares??? How many of us would dare to flaunt green stilts with fuchsia lipstick, metal loops and leather jackets,today? That too, with such effortless panache!
Minimalism? It was symptomatic of bad fashion sense then!
Such riotously carefree, colourful times!

Whoever burst the pink-bubble!!!

Bikash Bhattacharya and his Durgas

I am not a connoisseur, critic or even a student of art. Terms, jargon and sometimes, even nuances, elude me. But I'd like to believe nonetheless, that I am, as much as anyone else, endowed with an innate aesthetic sensibility that does not necessarily require formal training. And the paintings of Bikash Bhattacharya appeal to me precisely for this power they have, to touch that raw, untrained chord. His portrayal of women, in particular-with which, I was initiated into Bikash's world of magic-realism-left me in awe and in love with the man for life! One has only to see his Durga-series to know what I mean. The artist's brush seemed to glide over the canvas as gently as a lover's caress; the desire to know and discover the body of the woman, as ardent and real as that of a flesh-and-blood lover, seeped through with every careful stroke. Painting after painting. Durga after Durga.
In many ways, he paved the way for the typification of the 'ideal Bengali' woman; goddess-like; large, kohl-smudged eyes, vermilion smeared across the forehead; long flowing wavy hair; cotton sari draping a dusky, supple, curvy body, and sleeveless blouse revealing shapely womanly arms. Flaming sensuality.
Even then however, what absolutely enthralled me was the fact that the images never really conformed to stereotypes of feminine beauty, even in semi-nude depictions. No effort was made to cover a flaw up or mask a blemish. It made me wonder about the artist's own love and appreciation for the female body, irrespective of its age or colour or proportion. It COULD NOT have been a false reflection! Secretly, I've always wondered how it might have been to be his muse, wondered how his brush might have lingered on the canvas, in portraying me as his Durga. This man was a lover first, a painter then. Someone who saw beauty and divinity in the most ordinary, even traipsing on the ugly, in its conventional understanding. To me, he emerged as the worshipper of the feminine form, resplendent even in its most repulsive repugnant manifestations. In so doing, Bikash seemed to scoff at traditional aesthetic morality, mock archetypes of the 'beautiful' and challenge popular notions of the 'desirable' female body. I am sure there have been painters before him who had deified the feminine form, even in all its gory and macabre avatars, but there was something about Bikash's paintings that seemed to supercede them all, in terms of pure visual experience. I am in any case, someone who is easily enraptured by the photographic likeness of a painting, so that Bikash's paintings reached out to me in a manner that is nothing short of esoteric. The love and longing of each careful brush-stroke showed itself on the body of the particular Durga-whether she be the urban homemaker, or the domestic help, the blind pregnant woman or the woman with a paunch, way past her prime-both in body and spirit. All desirable. All beautiful. All Durgas. All women.