The child in you..

Good things tend to make you miss your mom. And, “you” and “your” can be replaced by their first person counterparts, here.

Holidays, lazy afternoons, morning teas, half-melted Diary Milk chocolate, clear skies, heavy Cumulonimbus, Sen Mahasay sweets, George Biswas, Phoolbagan-bound minibuses, Gariahat, kabiraji cutlet, Soumitra Chatterjee….all good things. Remind me of Ma.

And childhood.

The fondest of them, was sleeping next to her on a quiet afternoon, both our schools being closed. Smelling her and doing nothing, sharing the same blanket if it was December, her constant entangling my feet with her own, putting her cold hands on my stomach to feel warm herself and making me feel frozen. To my “you’re so cruel, I don’t like you” remark, she would say, pulling me close, “But I love torturing you, like this”…

Memories of childhood are mood-elevating. Specially, if you discover something in the process (Read till the end and you will know what).

My oldest and happiest memory as a child is “people”. But that’s not the point. The thing I remember the most was, how I used to judge them. My first notion of every person I met was he/she was “ki bhishon bhalo” (So very good). It’s like, you start an examination by marking the examinee 100. The chances are that marks get slashed and he ends up in an eighty or a ninety (or even a forty). But still you would call it good enough. The helplessness of marking someone from zero and ending up in a twenty something, ‘minus something’ or just zero after days of knowing him, killed me.

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 I remember travelling once in an AC railway coach. The first time and perhaps the only one, as a child. The side berths with curtains drawn seemed like a different world. A locked room, a home within a home. The sensation of secluding oneself from the crowd when you want to, the happiness of “bunk-beds”, the feeling of “I can even drop the aloo-curry on my dress while eating and no one can see me!”. Goosebumps!

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I would start reminding the world that my birthday is around…from the beginning of December. I would start countdowns. “Guess what’s 15 days away?”, I would tell friends, teachers, neighbours, school-bus drivers and the like.  Subtly and then blatantly (read shamelessly), I would give hints as to what I would like to get as gifts and what I already have, so that there aren’t any replications.

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Like 90% Bengali children, “phhoole phhoole dhole dhole” was the one of the first songs I learnt. Courtesy, taking breath at the wrong places, I used to sing ‘totinihil lolo tuley’. I asked my teacher what does “totinihill” and “lolo” mean and she laughed (like she laughed at ‘elemeno P’). She said when you grow up and learn to take breath at the right places, it would automatically become ‘totini hillolo tuley…..’.

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Water logging was fun. And in New Alipore (the ‘baper-bari para’), it was a regular scene whole monsoon. The fun was wearing rubber-slippers (hawai choti) to the bus- stop, carrying the socks and school-shoes in a carry-bag, changing them while waiting for the school bus. Rain was fun and walking in the rain, too.

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Biriyani was the best food in the world followed by Maggi.

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I asked Ma (and myself) several times, “Rabindranath ki sotyi i Thakur? Is He God?” (the use of capital H is natural and not intentional).

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Nahoums defined cakes. And so did their marzipan roses. On birthdays, I would wait and pray for being bestowed with atleast one rose with my piece of cake. The slippery feeling it left in the mouth made birthdays complete. And, yes, coloured tongues too!

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During this time of the year, the doorbell would ring incessantly. Durga Puja-chanda collectors. Local boys from the para-pujo-committee. I was taught not to open the door when I was alone. I would say “barite boro ra keu nei, pore ashben.”  (There’s no one at home, come later).

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The best things to watch on TV were advertisements.

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Any secret under the sun could be shared with the younger sibling. Just any.

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Extended windows fascinated me to no ends.

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As a child, I would always imagine things from the shadows of the trees falling on the floor from a window, sunlight peeping in, through the leaves, from here and there. I would imagine faces and animals too….from the shapes of the clouds; or from parts of the wall, where the paint has peeled off.

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New books, dresses and shoes were meant to be kept next to the pillow on the day they were received. I would sleep with them. (This meant school books, dresses and shoes as well).

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The elephants in Alipore Zoo were shifted to a larger open-air enclosure. Everytime the car or the taxi drove past the zoo, over the Alipore Bridge (opposite Taj Bengal), the elephants could be seen. I used to crane my neck from the window and see the elephants, even from outside the zoo!! That was fun.

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The smell of Shiuli made me ecstatic. So did the smell of the local fish market.

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The joy of flying kites was enormous.

You release the string from the bail and the kite flies high, high and higher. Happiness. And then comes another one, hovering around him, snaps the string and your kite gets detached. Now, he flies on his own. You lose control. You bid adieu.

For me, this was the happiest moment. You read it right. He is meant to fly…and what could beat the feeling of flying on his own, with no strings attached? He explores on his own, settles on someone else’s terrace. A 5 year-old finds the new friend and smiles. The kite meets new people.

"I’ve freed him". That’s how it is meant to be. Some things are meant to be free. And that’s what made me happy.  

Yes, the joy of freeing the kite was enormous.

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And then the discovery!! I realised that, nothing has changed. All these are intact. Everything holds true….even on the wrong side of twenties. I was alone at home the other day. Puja-chanda collectors rang the bell to which I replied, “barite baba ekhon nei, pore ashun”. Yes, I was embarrassed later. And happy…for reasons unknown..

Likewise, the ‘elephants in Alipore Zoo’, marzipan roses, new clothes and shoes, ‘totinihill lolo’ and birthday reminders…all hold true even now. Embarrassed I am. And happy too.  For reasons unknown.

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On another note, I found this Calvin and Hobbs comic strip yesterday. And yet again, for indefinite reasons, it reminded me of a poem. Of Rabi Thakur.

যদি খোকা না হয়ে,

আমি হতেম তোমার টিয়ে,

তবে পাছে যাই মা উড়ে..

আমায় রাখতে শিকল দিয়ে?

সত্যি করে বল,

আমায় করিসনে মা ছল -

বলতে আমায় 'হতভাগা পাখি ,

শিকল কেটে, দিতে চায় রে ফাঁকি'?

তবে নামিয়ে দে মা,

আমায় ভালোবাসিস নে মা,

আমি রব না তোর কোলে,

আমি বনেই যাব চলে..

Good poetry gives me goosebumps. J