Avik's Story

It was a perfect Sunday. Last night I slept like a baby. In Delhi, fresh chillness had finally arrived and was slowly smothering the morning sleep by a nice cozy blanket. My own blanket was neatly folded and kept on a chair - like hundreds of other things which were mismanaged and misplaced all over my little den, and I was rather sunk under a softness, which only matched Taniya and her precious brown Kashmere quilt. But she wasn’t here. She must be sleeping in other hemisphere - maybe in an ocean of whiteness in a luxury resort, while her face resonated like the morning star and the little sound of her breath filled the room with life. Yesterday she texted that she was visiting a five-star with her friends - and that was subtle enough for me to not to expect any call or text this morning. Maybe she’d call later at the day, when she’d wake up and we’d do group video chat to our kids in Kolkata before missing them badly. But I had her quilt. I pulled it up to cover my face and sni...

She just bent down and touched the plastic speed breaker with her forehead. Her sacred posture and level of dedication as evident from her closed eyes and glued forehead to the dirty speed breaker for considerably awkward time, proved that she was quite used to it. Her black hair spread throughout her head like hasty rangoli and brown handbag was painted in dust. “What are you doing madam?” A CISF personnel asked. An oversized automatic gun was the only thing visible in his whole uniformed figure. The girl stood up with dust smeared on her forehead and with folded hands, she touched it with utmost reverence. Then she turned to the clearly flabbergasted armed sentry and told in a content tone, “I'm paying respect to the symbol of justice system of my country”. A massive lit-up reddish Victorian building named North Block, which housed two powerful ministries of this country stood in front of her profound reverence, maybe being ashamed, or puzzled. I had a busy day ...

On a certain level, the history of India is nothing but varied struggles against discrimination. Barring the pre-ancient period, when deep teakwood was the color of people, who flourished an awesome and enigmatic civilization beside a mighty river called Indus, the whole Indian subcontinental history is marred with wide-ranging protests and struggles against the blatant discriminatory policies of kings and nawabs, priests and maulavis, colonists and politicians. Even ‘men’ discriminated ‘women’ for millennials with such astuteness that majority of womenfolk now fell in love with those discriminations and some go even extra miles to preserve fucked up deviations. And legendary are those elaborate discriminatory rituals of rich against poor in India, so that so a poor’s whole life and hopes and dreams keep circling around those ‘rituals’ forever, till he passes his withered baton to next generation. Well I guess that, now I should state the obvious, that despite everybody de...

“ স্যার , আপ ব্যাগ ভুল গয়ে। “ ব্যাগটা নিয়ে রুমের বাইরে বেরোতেই গম্ভীর বাতাস ধাক্কা মারলো। লোকে বলে , এই করিডরে নেশা আছে। করিডর ঘেঁষা সারি সারি লাল - সবুজ বাতি লাগানো ঘরের ভেতর দেশ কেনাবেচা হয় , দেড় বিলিয়ন মানুষের ভাগ্যে সিলমোহর লাগানো হয়। আর আমি প্রতিদিন সকালে ল্যাপটপের ব্যাগ নিয়ে যখন লাল কার্পেটের উপর দিয়ে হাঁটি , মোটা দেয়ালের পুরোনো গন্ধ আর বন্ধ দরজার সামনে বসে থাকা আর্দালির আলসেমির ছন্দ , নেশাই   লাগিয়ে দেয়। মাঝে মাঝে যখন রাত বাড়ে , আর নেভানো বাতি গুলো বলে ‘ সাহাব নেহি হ্যায় ’, আমি ফেরার গতিবেগ কমিয়ে দিই।   দিনভরের হাস্যকর শূন্যতা আর শীতল নির্মমতা তখন ঘুমিয়ে পড়া ফুটপাথের বাচ্চার মতো থিতনো - আর আমার সাথে দেখতে গেলে তখন কলকাতার বুড়ো ট্রামেরও   অনেক মিল।   দুজনেই নির্লিপ্ত চোখে ভাবি , এই শেষ বার।   কাল আর না।   আমি ঐশিকার শরীর খারাপের খবর পেলাম এই ফাঁপা করিডোরেই।   তানিয়ার মা অত্যন্ত কঠিন মহিলা।    আর যখন তিনি বল...