With one foot in and refusing to fall...

DG was diagnosed with cancer of the stomach three years ago. Post surgery he was fine until the tumour blocked his colon and the doctor said he could do nothing. For the last six months he has been in and out of hospitals . In the intervening periods he attended office , driving over six kilometres either way, in a desperate attempt to maintain a semblance of normalcy.

He ran away from hospital the day before the pujas started - on Panchami because he was afraid he would die over the Pujas in hospital- in an alien place without his family near him. People yelled at him , scared that he would indeed die and spoil the festivities for them . Back home he went to the market with his wife and stocked up on food . Mind you, he could not eat and had passed neither urine nor stool for around 15 days .But he was desperate to be with his wife and ten year old daughter . I ask you, was it a bad thing ?

The doctor told him he had just a week to live . He lay in bed and drank cold water with sugar candy in it and waited for death to claim him . The water trickled past his mouth and gagging he threw it up. His wife gave him cold thin soups which, too , he threw up . He tried the water and sugar candy again and and found that if the solution was thin enough it would trickle past whatever blocked his throat and go somewhere into his wasted body .

The apartment which he bought recently ,has three bedrooms and a huge living area . Restless he totters from room to room trying to find a way out of the terrible agony he is doomed to live with, till death- who insists on playing truant now, claims him - the red plastic bucket into which he throws up, a constant companion.

He likes the bedroom facing the south - there are a couple of mango trees where birds start their songs before the sun rises . The red curtains which screen the window reminds him of the evening he took his wife and child shopping to New Market. So many memories bubble and froth like the vomit that inches out of his mouth and sometimes shoots out in a trajectory .He tells me he does not know what sins he has committed - perhaps it is karma .

For the time being he is folded up on the bed , his six foot frame like a paper cutout , entirely one dimensional, groaning continuously, refusing to go to hospital, waiting to die , a man without food and water , with the cancer having spread to every conceivable part of his body.

It is a macabre scenario, this waiting for merciful death to release him , that has played for the last 30 days now- the doctor's prophesy of 7 days having stretched this far.

He refuses the comfort of any medicine to alleviate his pain , he refuses saline and will not have any more needles stuck into what remains of his body .Even the doctors are baffled and irritated at his refusal to die . He does not want to talk much, even less to listen.

There is a wife - protected and sheltered for so long by her husband that till a month ago she was unaware of how to go about writing a cheque .

There is a little girl, tall for her age . She flits in and out of the living room , into her father's room and back again She switches on the television, pirouettes and demands to know whether she is looking nice in her white chikan kurta and salwar. She settles down at the dining table with paper and pastels , seemingly unconcerned .

Suddenly she turns and says to us conversationally " I told Ma to wear all the nice sarees which Baba had bought for her for the pujas. He's going to die soon you know . Then we shall all have to wear only white clothes."

Of Old Houses and Ma Durga

My grandmother's father's house was in Baghbazar - in the lane opposite Girish Ghosh's house in Bosepara lane. When I was a child , Sunday mornings meant snuggling up to my Thakuma and listen to her stories of Durga Puja in her father's house , where a bull used to be sacrificed , the beam in the aatur ghor or the maternity room , where a cobra swung itself down , poised over the cot where the infant Bulbul , my eldest uncle lay , the house opposite, where Sister Nivedita used to stay , the gardens full of fragrant flowers which the acolytes used to pluck for the mornings devtions . In a corner of the garden they threw the flowers from the evening worship which my aunt Mili used to want to pick up - because they were still fresh and smelt beautiful. This year my cousin came - she was full of stories gleaned from her mother and remembrances of stories Thakuma had told her and we went in search of the house .

We had no clues except the name and repetitions of that name were pleanty , matching with my grandmother's maiden name - and we were trapped - in the narrow alleys , houses marched tall and old, huge Follies , with the stray apartment house thrown in . Time actually stood still here , talking incessantly of a time gone by .

An open door led into a paved courtyard with verandahs lining it,

the spire of a temple rose , where the lane turned into another -


Such follies they built in the olden days -a house with the most intricate wrought iron verandahs and lead paned gothic windows and across the lane - hugely majestic;


a verandah in a dilapidated house with beautiful wrought iron banisters ,




huge trees that must have stood there for years on end .And the ferry ghat ..


The pujas came early this year and it is just now that the clouds are laundered white and fluffy and the sky an impossible blue . The rain god however was not too mean and we had our share of the good times ...

Sexist stances

This is what The Telegraph has to offer this morning as a derogatory comment on the state of the declining law and order situation in West Bengal .

Although there is a disclaimer below the picture , apart from the political scenario in West Bengal which actually prompted the piece as well as the "haha" photograph ,I wonder what exactly the paper wants to convey - that women are indecisive ? Or inefficient perhaps ? That to take command of a situation you have to hitch up your jockstraps, light a Marlboro and ride off barking orders left and right and lay about you with a cudgel if they are not followed ?That only a man , by default , can be the ruling faction ?

And then , by the law of deduction, if a man cannot do all these things , put him in women's clothes , slip a few bangles on his wrists and make a mockery , not of the man actually, but of all womankind in general ? By de categorising him, in effect ?

And then they slip this in the Metro section of the paper and call it role reversal .....

(photographs downloaded from The Telegraph)

Vignettes of a summer afternoon

When I swivel my chair around I can see the Magnum Opus of Realty rearing its manicured head skywards against a backdrop of relentless afternoon sky . Lower down across the lane is an apartment house . Tier upon tier of verandahs with laundry waving lazily in the sunshine - crisp white sheets and pillowcases drying in the sun are so evocative .

And then there are the curtains at the window there , they billow with a sudden gust of breeze and I can see a pair of long bare legs on the bed . And then a man comes up and closes the window and I can almost hear the hum of the air conditioner and feel the room going smoky with passion and cool by turn and suddenly I feel late afternoon-drowsy .

If I stand and look down at the road ,I can see the children returning home from school , bags hanging off their shoulders , dragging their feet in the sand piled up in the corner there , swinging a bottle at a school chum , the other girl ducking and running and then there's a little chase before they quieten down and continue walking home wards .

Across the road the richkshawpullers have put up a small roadside shrine where they are now playing very suggestive Bhojpuri songs about bhabhis and devars . I hum along a little under my breath , the tune is so staccato and catchy. One rickshaw puller doubles up his lungi and does a little dance, pelvic thrust , gyrate and bump

And the house across the road has broad window sills . The servant girl has curled up on the ledge , holding on to the window grille .And then I see to the left a Krishnachura tree , in a burst of orangey red flowers . . There is a house just beyond the branches loaded with red flowers - a white house with tall windows and a verandah shaded by the tree . And it is strange but there is A Man wearing shorts and a singlet , stretched out on an easy chair , legs propped on the verandah ledge , reading a book . The verandah looks cool and inviting . It is dark and shady and the man is drinking something in a glass and reading a book .

That is absolutely the last straw . How is a girl to work surrounded by the burgeoning voluptuousness of a summer afternoon ?

My cellphone rings . I pick it up . Its The Husband , of over 20 odd years , calling to say he will wait for just 5 minutes before he goes off . I slide open the window and there he is in the car grinning up at me from the road . I panic, switching off the computer , clearing my table , running to tell the boss I have to leave suddenly and will explain later . I pick up my bag , lock the door and am out with a minute to spare .

Suddenly it rains , a spatter of drops as I run across the road and duck into the car .

Playing hooky after absolutely ages has never been so full of joy !

The Sunny One - tagged me for the Numbers tag

ONE life . So make the most of it .
TWO of us - AG and I .
THREE - ganging up against me - AG,Srin and Tani
FOUR of us making up my family

FIVE days of the week stretching interminably and then suddenly the weekend has come and gone

SIX pairs of assorted footwear. I need a baker's dozen.

SEVEN deadly sins - Wrath , that's me

EIGHT years since Ma died .
NINE months you carry a baby inside of you and whoosh suddenly she's all grown up and gone away
TEN minutes to do this tag - seven days to post it .

And then she did not tag me for the literature tag. but I like it so I'm doing it anyway !

1) What author do you own the most books by?
A toss up between PG Wodehouse and Agatha Christie

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
None that I know of - I'm careful that way

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?

No I have left my proper English speaking /writing days days far behind me . Now, I split my infinitives, use or drop articles indiscriminately, malaprop like mad . So.

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?

John Galt - a teenage crush that has persisted

5) What book have you read the most times in your life?

Hemingway's The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?

Princess of the School by Angela Brazil

7) What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?

I read a lot and enjoy whatever I read so its difficult to say , but well Dan Brown's Deception Point , was terrible .

8) What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?

Mimlu Sen's "Baulsphere" for the content and the sheer joy of living which the book projects .

9) If you could force everyone to read one book, what would it be?

I wouldnt force anyone to do anything .so nada. But I definitely would recommend Maugham's "Razor's Edge " and Hemingway's short stories .

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for literature?

Amitav Ghosh Each book is a reinforcement of his writing skills . My personal favourites are The Hungry Tide and Dancing In Cambodia.

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?

The Enchantress of Florence - it would make for a stupendous crossover blockbuster . Imagine the scope of the film - whimsy, sex, magic, the action panning across continents , incorporating emperors, doges, pirates ,sorcery in its huge plan . It would be filmed using the best of Hollywood and Bollywood and would be one fanatastic potboiler

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?

Hmm Uncle Fred in the Springtime .

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.

Nope , none .

14) What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?

I read lowbrow books to relax and therefore any choices I make here would smack of partiality, so I'm not telling.

15) What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?

Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness .We had it in the Modern English syllabus for my PG studies - but I never did get around to understanding the angst of Kurtz . I never read the book nor did I answer any of the questions related to it .

16) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?

Shakespeare of course.

17) Austen or Eliot?

Eliot

18) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?

Bengali literature . I'm illiterate that way and ashamed of it .

19) What is your favorite novel?

The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh

20) Play?

Shaw's Pygmalion

21) Short story?

The Open Window by Saki


22) Work of non-fiction?
William Dalrymple's City of Djinns

23) Who is your favorite writer

Hemingway.

I am not tagging anyone . Please feel free to take it up !