RIP

music drowned
the other night
in a tub
of coke and soap

poetry died
the other night
of a heart failure
and a drug overdose

the storm
must have been too big
to ride
the bounds of reality.
and all obscurity faded
into the recesses of the night
while the shooting star
followed into where
rests the heart of wilde.

too many people
probe into the death
some call call it murder
and others term it
suicide
speculations would never end.

but how does that matter
for in their departure
they have left
their world
behind...

All in good humaar!

My phadar always told me that i should sometimes try to write in my natibh languaze as well. Honesly I always rephrained phrom doing so. My hesitason was a maniphestason oph my linguistic incapabilities an my lazines more than my naglact phor my madar tang. Assam is a dibherse land with an imansely ris history oph culsure behine it. It is knone phor its ris languaze and literasur as well. An I knew that I cud nebher do it any justis by attemting to write in assamese myselph. An so quite obhiously I had stuck to englis phor so long.

But resently my garlphrand has started throwin the same sit upon me. You know all that crap about not straying phrom your roots and respecting your languaze. The whole oph last week, see has been insisting that i write something phor her in assamese. So phinaly here I go. My pharst attemp at capsuring the risness and beauty of the languaze i pharst learned to speek. This is dedicated to my phadar. Ane this is dedicated to my garlphrand. I hope this will do away with most oph your complains.

I am bhery seriusly out oph ideas to write apon. My muse is on an indephinate bhakason. Hopephully this writer's block would soon be obher and i would be able to come up with something better phor both oph you. I hope I habh not let any oph you down. I may not be bhery good with my natibh languaze. But hey, atlis i tried!

THE MYSTERY OF THE SOLITARY SANDALS

“Have you ever given a thought about all these single sandals lying by the road? Just count them; they’re above twenty at least! Strange where they come from!” My friend Kiel uttered that comment on way back to the hostel after having two large glasses of chilled milk shake each in an attempt to beat the local heat. The road was not long. It must have stretched for less than a kilometer. And in those thousand meters, actually lay twenty-seven single sandals scattered randomly. Most of them were worn-out. Few were still in usable state only if one could complete the pair.
I was surprised that those sandals had never caught my fancy before but now that my friend pointed it out to me, this simple and yet odd observation obsessed me for lot many weeks to come. Whenever I would walk by that road in the ensuing days I’d always count the number of sandals scattered around. They always varied between twenty and thirty and occasionally it even went up to thirty-five. Never at the same spot though. Never the same color though. It was something new every time!

Very initially I’d to remind myself to count the sandals whenever I walked by that road. Few days later I started doing it subconsciously. I got so obsessed about the mystery behind these sandals that at times I went for a walk only to count them. They always maintained their consistency. Never less than twenty. Never higher than thirty-five. Whenever I walked by I kept my eyes focused on the road to learn where these single sandals come from. But I was never lucky enough to witness their arrival on the road. The obsession instead of subsiding kept on growing within me. I had to know the truth. I had to uncover the mystery behind these strange sandals. Or I’d starve to death. Or may be I wouldn’t be able to breathe however hard I tried to suck the air in. I started spending all my evenings sitting on the footpath balustrade puffing at a cigarette trying hard to understand a truth that had been eluding me like all the words while I’m trying to pen this down.

Sometimes I was accompanied by a friend or two in the evenings when I’d come out on my quest. We’d sit together, smoke together and gossip about lot many things but my central focus never shifted for a second. They often asked me what kept me so troubled and absent-minded. And most often they assumed my silence for unrequited love. I never bothered to correct anyone. I couldn’t even explain to myself why I never told them what I’d been observing but somehow I just couldn’t. May be I was apprehensive of being laughed at. Or may be this quest had infused a certain esoteric sense of adventure in me that I wasn’t willing to share. The whole thing would have definitely seemed ridiculous to another man. But I was convinced that behind this mystery lay the answer to most of the complicated questions in life. Something told me that once I unlocked the answer to the mystery of the solitary sandals I’d be enlightened with the meaning of life. All doubts and insecurities, all ambiguity and fears would cease from my mind and vanish into the slender air.

More than a month passed. The sandals were still there. Always in different locations but within the same stretch. Mostly of different types. Initially I’d found them to be different every time but now that my eyes were used to them I realized that few patterns often repeated. And the mystery remained as thick as over. I still couldn’t figure out where the sandals came from though I’d occasionally see a rag picker boy picking up one, observing it closely and throwing it back where he’d picked it up from.

My visits started getting less frequent though. Exam date sheets had arrived and I realized that if I didn’t start applying myself soon enough I would have no chances of being promoted to my second year of engineering. I’d of course still walk down that road at least once a day to refresh myself and smoke a cigarette but I wouldn’t walk the whole kilometer to count all the sandals. Although now I’d greater worries troubling me, the mystery of the sandals refused to let go of my mind. Especially when twitching restlessly on the sleepless nights the sandals kept flashing in front of my eyes . It was like a mental snap shot permanently loaded into my brain, which I couldn’t let go of even if I tried. Then I’d spend the next fifteen minutes or so trying to come up with all possible explanations. Just when I’d feel that I was getting closer to the truth my mind would go blank. And I’d wake up next morning wrapped up in the exam fever. And this would go on.

It was the night of ‘Baisakhi’ and as per the traditions of the hostel it was celebrated with much ado. It was one day when everybody chose to forget about the upcoming exams and made merry to their heart’s content. There were giant sound systems arranged and a dj was hired. Everyone was dancing however incapable they might have been of shaking their legs. Only one person was missing. It was Shayantan, whom we fondly called ‘The Bengali Babu’. He’d locked himself in the room and was trying his best to evade the noise and mug up his textbook. Reportedly Shayantan studied so much that he usually didn’t even find time to have a bath. I don’t know if the rumors were to be believed but the fact that his roommate always spent most of his time in a different room did hint upon things.

Anyway that’s immaterial considering that Shayantan has no role to play in the mystery of the solitary sandals. But I mention him anyway because all of us were enjoying ourselves and he was locked up in his room. And surprisingly no one missed him. Infact his absence was hardly noticed. Except for those few occasional times when someone would shout what a moron he was and everyone around would laugh. Indeed what a waste of life it was!

As the night progressed few of my friends invited me to smoke up some weed with them in the hostel terrace. Though I didn’t indulge usually that day I decided to be a little liberal with myself. Heck, how would one day matter? I’m not Shayantan! I accompanied these guys to the terrace and helped them roll up the joints. I wasn’t an ace and ended up spilling most of it. And the guys picked it up and used it in another joint without complaining. In around twenty minutes the six of us managed to roll up some fifteen joints. I lit up the first and we smoked up in a chain. ‘Death chain’ was what it was called. Around three joints down I started feeling a little light around my knees and guts, the first sign that the marijuana had kicked in. The lightness grew with every subsequent joints and so did the laughter. We were all holding our stomachs and laughing at the most corny jokes we must have heard a thousand times already. But surprisingly the jokes suddenly seemed to have rejuvenated their humor. But after a while I couldn’t laugh anymore. I even found it difficult to orient my thoughts. The jokes started seeming like a bee buzzing in my ears. Loud but incomprehensible. And gradually my mind returned to the perplexing mystery of the sandals. Where did they all come from? My thoughts entered deeper and deeper into a maze from where there was no way I could return.

And seeing my sudden change of mood, a friend quizzed me again if it was a manifestation of unrequited love. And like always I remained silent. But for some reason I couldn’t brush aside this consideration like ever. Could it have been true after all? Suddenly in this new light I could see my life so much like that of those lonely sandals. Yes, there was a girl I used to love once upon a time in my school days. I’d even confessed my feelings to her but she always remained indifferent. Those were tough days for me. It was hard to move on. It was hard to put her out of my mind. But then gradually I managed to get over her. And till now I was convinced that it was all a part of a past I’d left behind a long way back. But suddenly I was confused all over again. How lonely I was without her! How different life could have been had she reciprocated my feelings!
Even though sometimes we confine ourselves to solitude and try to seek happiness in it, the human heart is not meant to be alone. It needs the existence of another soul to care for and be cared for. Yin and Yang, Adam and Eve, the single sandals lying on the road, some things are always meant to be in pairs. Only if those sandals had a tongue to speak of their tale I’m sure it would have been just as tragic as mine. How wasted some things are when they are not in a pair. Had the very beautiful Mona Lisa been painted with a single breast would she still have been looked upon as an eternal icon of beauty? I didn’t have to slip my feet into those sandals now to feel their loneliness sear through me. Strangely enough I was one of those sandals myself. Rejected and thrown. And cut into halves. And where my other half was, seemed all unfathomable to me. Unless some kindly person picked me up lying dejected on the road and gave me a different existence, my loneliness and futility wouldn’t subside. Until then, I would remain just an useless artifact, something even the rag picker deems unnecessary.

Wrapped in my crazy thoughts I went off to sleep in the terrace itself and it was not long before I started dreaming. And it was the strangest dream I ever had. My exams were over and results were out. I failed miserably and Shayantan topped our hostel. And the girl I once loved suddenly appeared from nowhere and started walking towards me. My arms were wide open in anticipation but she briskly walked past. And she grabbed Shayantan’s hands and they started walking off together. I couldn’t let her go so easily. Just when I seemed to have discovered my existence I didn’t want to be lost all over again. And not Shayantan at least. Anyone but him! Shayantan started off on his bike and she sat behind holding on to him. I ran behind as fast as I could and I tried to grab on to her. I missed each time. There was this one moment when I managed to grab on to her feet. She freed herself but dropped her sandal behind. Just one out of the pair. And she disappeared out of my sight with Shayantan. I held on to the sandal for a while with tears rolling out of my eyes and threw it off helplessly. And the circumstance kept repeating. My dream entered into what a software engineer would call an infinite loop. Every time she would come towards and then walk past me. Every time I’d try to grab her away from Shayantan and but he’d manage to get away with her. And every time she’d leave behind one of her sandals with me which I’d throw away on the road in my helplessness and misery. And soon the road was covered with sandals. Single and solitary sandals scattered all over. Shattered pieces of my heart scattered all over. Waiting to be rejuvenated like the corny jokes under the influence of marijuana. And turned down by the local rag picker boy.