Avik's Story

Oishikaa, Let me tell you a story. Many years ago, in ancient Nigeria, there lived a little brave girl named Komu, whose father was the best farmer ever. One day the evil Queen became ill and bad people blamed her father, as the Queen ate millet from his farm. The farmer was taken away as a prisoner, and Komu became sad. Days and months passed. Komu missed her father and one day she wiped her tears off and decided to rescue him. She sold everything she had and bought a horse. On her way to the palace, she passed a village, where crops were dead due to a terrifying disease and people were famished. But watching the hungry little girl, the villagers gave her their last food. When crossing the Niger River, watching the thirsty little girl, a blue fish gave her the last water drop of dried river. When she reached the bottom of the big mountain, on top of which evil Queen resided, a butterfly from a dead Obe tree gave her two wings before dying out of heat. Komu rode

she did it again this time with walk, once in a week sublime in rain what do you think of us? her voice coarse and i lost mine in alleys of my brain hang us in frame, that’s easy or, leave us in pain, amazing you see same flesh day after day your things rise, even we’re ten do we look slut when we walk or spread sex as you want do we resonate with powder and lipstick do we smile with full set of teeth WELL! we do and why should we care why should we care millionth time this decade bottom to top, leg to head you cringe you beg what do you think of us, she asked a miracle, i whispered, a charge

The last year was hard on me, as I watched death closely and her whiff reminded me of my childhood, which was mostly stuck at darkest corners of our dusty roof, and my friends, most of whom were imaginary and lived in mirror and walls, returned with demands of love. I know, they meant no harm, as I took countless adventures with them in a lonely floor or in a past-odoured closet and I saved their lives and they mine, but my heart pumped and breaths weighed just by mere sights of them and I knew I was in trouble. I am not a child anymore, at least not by looks or the decisions I have to make for survival. I don’t have liberty to replace the visions in my nightmares or strength to shut them down, rather I try to live with them and make in peace, and until I am married and fathered and have beautiful souls surrounding me, death was so enigmatic that I almost fell to her mystic ways. The magic to vanish a person forever seemed to be the best way of life one could get. And so when I

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 বললেন যে ঐশিকা না পারছে খেতে , না পারছে