Mango Fall (Excerpt)

‘Cring Cring’ an oblivious melody to oncoming pedestrians. He loves whizzing by slow trotters, surprising them with his bell. Shiny and small, it bellowed music when he rang it repeatedly. Much unlike his music teacher at school; she made him stand at the blackboard and write lessons…every class.

‘You croak like a Kola Bang, Ishwarer oshesh kreepa!’…she looked up as if He was watching over…listening. ‘Guruji never lived to see whom I teach,’ she used to snap at him furiously. The whole class used to chuckle; the muffled outbursts stopped when she sneered back at them through her spectacles. Much to his musing, it reminded him of ‘Sheyal Pundit ar Kumirer Shanar Pathshala’. Stories he longed to hear during the afternoon naps in his short stays at Nanu‘s in summer. That is no more, he thinks. Nanu is not well, she came to live at their house. Her dark eyes seem bleak as if someone has pulled out the life from them. She is hardly recognizable, frail and frightening. He does not fight with his cousin, his birth-date twin… Esha… anymore to sleep beside Nanu. Esha the favorite, Esha nimble feet…she clasps his hands and watched Nanu from a distant. Ammu says Nanu is going to a place. Kashmir Esha thinks.

Kcring kcringgg cring…’Are you coming to play football tomorrow?’ yelled Tito and wiggled the front wheels of his mountain bike and caught his blue eagle off guard. He yanked leftward to counter balance. Tito chuckled as the chains of the green racing bike rattled a downshift and whizzed by; all that could be made out from his fading voice was…'It’s a coke bet…losers pay.’ Tito loved to jump him like that, part of the aggression that represented a egotistical forward. He envied the racing bike a little; mostly because it stood out…no one else had a 21 gear aluminum casing fitted with racing seat and it sped like a phoenix.  He soared on the wings of his eagle, enshrouded in a thoughtless state –his frizzy hair brushing the gushing wind. He loved this state of being in tantric unison. He wondered whether Sheyal Pundit’s guru did the same…Ommm.. nisa rey.. SanI saAaaH…Om. He closed his eyes, lifting his chin towards the sky, hummed and drifted, ‘bomnisareysanIsabom…’.

A spec of water droplet exasperated his cheek –it was going to rain. He felt his locks near his temples; he did this often especially when he was unsure. Nimble feet would tip toe, pull at it from behind and make a run for it. She would giggle mischievously and hide behind Ammu while he chased her infuriated not at the pain but at her mischief. Ammu would grab hold of them in a tight hug close to her bosom. She would smell his hair; stroke it gently, drawing imperfect semi circles as if to calm him down and laugh at nimble feet; disapprovingly. Esha, glared a victorious tigress snare from her half hidden face. She had a beautiful glee in her eyes which sparkled by the warmth of love flowing from Ammu. Nimble feet never had her own. Ammu was her Ammu. He misses those moments; Ammu and Esha are both awfully quiet these days.

‘Ei Ei Ei….’ the brakes locked in and the tires screeched; the sounds brought him back from his quintessential neverland. He scratched his temples and looked deranged as if he was never at the crime scene –innocent. The tire was almost between the man’s legs; it was the local vegetable vendor Harun.  At that moment he stood on his toes like a practiced perfectionist ballet dancer. His legs perched like a tuning fork. His back arched like a bow, balanced by his hands. One was holding the edge of his lungi from falling off, the other holding the casket of Popeye’s spinach.  The crowd stopped around to have a laugh at the fading moments of the incidence but no one applauded the performance. Harun got back his to his balance, stepped aside and fixed himself like a true gentleman in a business suit –adjusting the tie, tucking in unwanted creases, plaiting hair from one side to another, sharp. ‘Choto bhai dekhe chalao. You’ll someone half.’   Resting a little and pacing his breath he continued, ‘Come from home. Your amma khoje…. Wrong again … search.  She tell me, I tell you come quick home. ‘Smiling wide he inquires, ‘My English better than the English now?’. He nods his head in assurance; better than the English. Harun continues, ‘Oneday I’ll land America by plane and tell English and sell vegetable you see bhaiya. I’ll take you too. We do business;  partner- partner’.  Content his message been delivered Harun rings the bell reassuring himself, ‘ting ting… Jao Bhaiya, go home.’   

 

Squares

Home; can be anything surrounded by five (six including the ground) sides. A square that gives meaning to life –a dreamer’s nirvana. Dhaka is home to fifteen million. Historically it has attracted people who found home associated with its culture, vanity, trade, politics, etc. It remained an ecstatic hub of the greater subcontinent. Vanity ended with the Moguls, Nawabs; and with it the whole charismatic epicenter that drew people from distant places. But it still remains the hub for the people of Bangladesh. Chaotic the city maybe, the whole systematic chaos runs an economy which deludes people to believe that this is heaven and you feel heavenly when you are in Dhaka. Believe in it; you maybe living in your Dhaka for your whole life but you necessarily do not think like this. But to an outsider the blazing billboards and smiling faces in it is an inspiration that drives them all the way from the simple life to the city life –‘Dhakai ghore garir chaka, batashe bhasey taka’. The magnetism is so traumatic that people often leave their most valuable wealth –however small, to live a dream that often becomes a nightmare. Few people make it through a hardship, if not a very prominent and prosperous life. Most regret, and degrade towards a life that has little meaning or purpose. The city harbingers a disparity so vast that stratification blinds people. You do not look back upon the destitute to see their well being twice. City life is harsh and cruel. And cruelty is a sly dog that eats from your hand but bites it as well.
A rickshawala sat by the other day at the tea stall (tong). He sat on a square throne laid out of bricks –courtesy the adjacent construction site. His back leaned against a lamp post. It did not mind the man wearing down on it; a gasp of tiredness shared with a metal pillar. He was poised as if a true king, slowly taking bits of the bread in his grasped palm. Sipping the tea silently, as if it was made in a winery in Italy –a 1965. His cloudy eyes has a lot to tell –marrying the daughters, putting a smile in the sons hungry face, repaying a burden of debts, and maybe a long lost home that gave life a different meaning. The silence was endurance to the cacophony of millions of shattered dreams. A whole life led in streets and among passengers who pays thriftily. At night he parks by the side of a pavement, the same depicted spot everyday and rests on the same seat where his passengers often seat on and treat them vilely.
Half past twelve, a slender figure stands in a corner of the Square street. The effeminate stance and the body language is inviting to the people of lust. The nail polish is imperfect but has a tender touch of a steady hand. The makeup reflecting the colors of the trade. She waits for the wolves. A sacrificial sheep; she has little alternative to live a lifestyle other than her current social stigma. The city drew her promising an aspiring life as a garments factory worker, but life had a different story to tell. Her discreet life is quite unknown to her family; the hardship does not reach them. Only the money does. In return, nothing is given back but sometimes blessing or sometimes scorns to earn more. Less is never enough. If that is not enough to worry about, than there are the issues of getting enough trade to pay the clan head and policemen their share and sometimes biscuit for the little Tommy who keeps guard and howls a bark to two. He was a puppy when she found her estranged in the same spot she has been standing for years now. She stopped counting.
Amazing smiles on those little mischievous square faces. They scamper about the traffic light selling popcorn or ‘poppon’ as they say it. Some of them carrying flowers or a bunch of de-shaped balloons, however colorful. They have the utmost confidence of an experienced salesman and the wit that shames adverts that you hear on television. From morning to late night, they runabout the traffic signals hailing at you to buy some more. Some of them are lucky to afford a chance at the evening school. But right after, they are back in the streets living off the sales they make. Now they lie back on the pavement curled up against one another not counting star as they go to sleep, but setting the target for tomorrow’s sale. Thriving little businessmen they have become. Fields do not attract them, neither to the storybooks, and everything that is of being children. They are adults, way ahead of their time.
His job starts at three in the morning. His sword is the broom that sweeps the streets clean. The pillage of the city must be cleansed making it ready for the next day to start all over again. Amazing things people throw away. His prized collection includes a broken transmitter (radio), a pair of ray bans (made in Jinjira), a collection of blue films, and a red scarf with a name written in one corner. He swipes it all –little Tommy does not mind him, nor does the children sound asleep, and neither does the rickshawala parked in one corner. His task remain unnoticed to the greater part of the city expect the stars above and the patrol car scanning the streets for miscreants. A howl at the other end –Tommy acknowledges an intruder. His family is also in the same business as was his father and maybe forefather. He sweeps; they collect –routine work and much mechanical. Later they gather the loot and scavenge for valuables. Often they are lucky; seldom have they found anything lucrative. They also have a space next to the children and their spiteful moms. Untouchables as they are, their square corners often mark their spaces with the spoils they gather. The placid smell and foul décor does not bother them much anymore. A part of life; often which is often short-lived.
A stranger twitches in another side of the pavement. He hums a baleful waning of illicit uttering that hardly makes sense. By day, his trade is borrowing; he borrows almost everything that has not been secured. By night he is emaciated by the chemicals that take hold of his rather cut square body. He quivers and clenches as the night bring the pleasures in his hysteria. Often, he gets up and runs up and down, screaming out the pain that has been long silenced by this disease he believes to have engulfed him.
The pavement is home to millions. It is not as square as you think but people do spend their whole lives in the same square feet they find so dearer to their lives. Often they are driven off by the elites who consider these people lesser than the dogs they doodle about. Often they fight among themselves for the same space. Sometimes it is harsher in the rain and in winter, but mostly they sleep covered head to tow often by a very thin cloth of the little they have. The children complain and grumble of the mosquitoes that sing lullabies in their ears. The parents, often comforting them with a false dream of a home of closed walls and a bed or a mattress in the near future from a dreaded city that has brought little or no change in their life.

Dreamcast 3.30am

Amidst a solemn full moon
An empty neon street light-flickering...
Melancholy street urchins collecting seashells
                                   - treasures of a treacherous night...
A pair of curious eyes peering out of a dark misty silhouette
                                   -shifting passersby...
An old guard...the burden of cascading dreams
Shivering onto his watchful shoulders...
A nameless street void of isolation...

And me...
A mere stargazer to nothingness & fireflies.
A vast emptiness while you all dream a sound sleep...
As if in a different realm
                                   - a lonely night wanderer...
Lost in a haze of purple cigarette smoke and a doubtful love song
                                   -I Pry.
Soaring over the waves of caged porch...
Waiting for an ephemeral sunrise...a nostalgic dream catcher.

A PAGE FROM AN ALCAHOLIC’S DAIRY

 

Morning started off dull and gloomy. The ringing alarm clock on my bedside table knocked on my brain-shrieking blows tearing my head into pieces. Last night seemed all blur now. Where did I go? How did I comeback? Some simple things just remained unanswered.
Hangovers are really painful. I stank. Was it the booze or my vomit? Maybe both. Stains on my unbuttoned shirt were a conformation of that. I was still literally dressed up for a party; even my shoes were on. Dark circles around my eyes reflected my drained out energy. My headache just shot up as I looked beyond my window. Like a vampire, my eyes refuted the galactic torch. An unbearable sun –curses shot out my mouth!
Looking around I spotted a half empty bottle of flavored vodka. Oh! My sweet nectar; must be a departing gift from yesterday. I took a glance at my money bag just in-case. Just as imagined; empty as a barren land. I bought it out of my own pocket –hard earned money put into good use. An evil smirk crossed my broken face at the thought.
I had to take my medicine -pills for my ailing liver and also for the headache. I grabbed the bottle and chucked it in all together. My doctors warned not to mix them together. It is poison they say. But I did not care; if death is inevitable why wait for it. I live to enjoy.
Few minutes passed and the alcohol started saturating my blood. I could feel it in my veins and of course a viscous twitch in my stomach meant that things have set in. Feeling a little tipsy, I turned on a slow track in my stereo and lit a cigarette. It is my trusted sidekick at that moment. I was not drunk; I know exactly where I fall off the edge. But it felt all good. My world like an itsy bitsy spider –slow, wobbling like an elephant from side to side. Happy and sad thoughts flooded my mind. With the background music it felt like sitting in a cinema theater for a movie. Surely life is very cinematic with lots of ups and downs, twists and turns! Sounds psychedelic, but I am not a fad on acids though.
My cell phone billowed. Must be my office- to hell with them I screamed. Nevertheless I picked it up. An unknown voice responded on the other side. I searched for names while bluntly listening to my caller. My 386 processor brain took some time to recollect bits and pieces –it was my drinking buddy from yesterday. Another invitation tonight on him and another night on the rocks. The ebullient chit chattering, jocular comedy, friendly slanders and few unknowns of the opposite sex to share shoulders with. And with the ever flowing drinks on the house –why not! I told him count me in.
The drive for another whacky night sat me up. I took a shower cleansing yesterday’s sins. Feeling better to be back on my buzzed world I got ready for work. Money is a catalyst for the unnerving life I lead. As I left my apartment, my empty vodka bottle looked sad. As if it was my wife saying “I’ll miss you. Come back home quickly”. Fixing up my fidgety stature I replied happily “Tonight we meet again, as because of all things you blow my mind and that makes me come back to you again and again”. A modern day living Devdas with all the Paro’s singing in my head then drove to work.