Shuvashree Chowdhury's Blog, page 41

TO FLY

To Fly:

I let go of the small things

They only weigh me out

I let go of restricting values

That pin my wings down

I let go of negative people

Who leave toxic residue

I let go of what defines me

Embrace an emancipated view

I let go of curbing inhibitions

To fly high up into the clouds

I watch my spirit circle and soar

  And f eel my heart tenderly aglow

Unaccompanied

Unaccompanied:

At times I have so much to say,

At other times nothing at all

Sometimes I feel one with the world,

At others from outside I view the world

At times I want to be amidst people,

Quite often just alone with my thoughts

However in life I equate with the world,

I know, one day, alone I must depart

 

Our Dreams – My Father’s & Mine

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our Dreams – My Father’s & Mine:

Some of us pursue our parent’s creative dreams, with the determination to see it to culmination, unlike what they were able to in their lifetime. My father, as I learnt only a year or so before his passing, had acted in a Bengali movie as the lead hero alongside a very reputed actress of those times in the 60’s. The completed film, as happened commonly at that time, even to actors who later went on to become legends by their sheer relentlessness, was never released. Father, who did not have any living parent or even a guardian by then and who had barely crossed the border from East Pakistan alone, did not have the financial support to try his luck with another, so dived full time into his new business and went on to become fairly successful. In his lifetime, father never divulged this shattering of his dream ever, either to mother or to us girls, burying it secretly in his heart. He was visibly very annoyed when his closest childhood friend blurted it to us over lunch at our house one day and tried to deny it and prevent his friend saying further. This awareness shocked and overwhelmed me profoundly, though I never brought it up with father again. Much later, every time I got a rejection letter from publishers for my novel Across Borders, I saw my father’s dejected face lurking over mine. I was determined then, I was going to make the world see it, for father’s sake as well as mine. Today, I hope wherever he is, he can see that we both did it!!!

Valentines Day thoughts on Love : A Symphony

  A Symphony

 

What is it that we want in our lives?

Is it a human love or a love truly divine?

A love that will see us through thick and thin

Or love that throws all caution to the wind

 

Do we want love to be a harmonious song

Calmly serenading us till life’s dusk, from dawn

Or do we wish that it be a rock concert lifelong

Perhaps an orchestra that smoothly plays along

 

Do we want love to be a canoe riding the waves

Tossed excitingly in a turbulent sea full of rage

Or we want it to be a boat anchored safe and secure

Watching life go by from the moonlit sandy shore

 

Thrills and excitement in life are so transient

That which survives the long haul is worthy and real

Then why for ephemeral joys do we plunge into a sea

Colorful and frisky everything in it though it seems to be 

 

The thrills of going to sea could drown us painfully

Should we then not be anchored to marriage dutifully?

Composing a Symphony of myriad hues and notes

Finding in it everlasting love, peace and hope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Diary of Random Thoughts

“I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.” – Charlotte Brontë

16th Jan, 2014:

That which I find most difficult, almost impossible to forgive, even of those I’m close to, is personal disrespect, ignoring, way over my intolerance of betrayal, treachery, hypocrisy, and all else. The way I often deal with it is coldly cutting the person out, at times for life, even at risk of being labelled arrogant.

26th Jan, 2014:

In the span of my vision now – there is beauty, peace and tranquillity. Yet I go searching the world over, rather than looking close, drawing from within myself, this recipe of love and humanity.

 9th Feb, 2014:

We always tend to equate other people’s aspirations based on our own, and judge their contentment and success quotient based on it. As children, we assume everyone wants to come first in academics and sports, then get into the best professional colleges, go on to earn the best pay packets to buy all money can buy, and then predictably aspire to marry the richest guy or the best looking girl and have lovely children for whom we again have the same cycle of aspirations. Why don’t we delve beyond our own dreams and benchmarks for happiness and success to notice some may have different aspirations that do not conform to ours.

17th Feb, 2014:

Lately, I appreciate and feel very blessed for compulsorily playing team games like basketball, baseball, volleyball, throw-ball, hockey, at boarding school daily. At the end of the match, in spite of all our inner resistance if our team lost, we congratulated and shook hands with the victorious team. Today, that deep-seated sportsmanship helps, in that I don’t allow jealousy or insecurity come in the way of genuinely appreciating someone who gets ahead of me in any sphere of life. Also, I sympathise with those who turn a blind eye to others in the face of their own self-doubt

18th Feb, 2014:

I’ve just made myself the best cup of filter coffee – well, well, a good markdown on that commendation is explicable when coming from the chef herself. It took me eight years since moving to Chennai to finally get it right, though I’ve never refused a cup if offered or opted for the instant/café variety over it, in all my time here. It had taken me half that time to gain mastery over the Dosa, the Idli and Sāmbhar took only a year to be at my table at home. Now I just hope it’s not another four years before I’m able to say all of this in Tamil.

Foodie that I am, it is but natural that I’ve adapted to the flavours of the south over anything else…I have even developed a taste for the Chettinad style Biryani over the Lucknow and Hyderabad style that I’d so fancied when in Calcutta. A way to a woman’s heart is also through her stomach…or so Chennai proved to me.

20th Feb, 2014:

When poetry drives me nuts:

I read a lot of poetry, like them even, without claiming to understand their nuance in the least, also write a few amateur ones myself which are more to pen my thoughts than to create an art form…but what really maddens me and makes me never want to read or write another poem in my whole life is creepy messages from wannabe poets which read like this …“Please read my latest poem “To whomsoever it may concern” which is dedicated to YOU…”

26th Feb, 2014:

CRITICISM: I’ve been thinking about why there are no institutes or universities which offer a course in Criticism. Why no one thinks it is important for people to qualify to become a Literary, Art or Food Critic. One qualifies to become even a kindergarten or nursery teacher, let alone a Doctor or an Engineer, and yet no qualification is required to trash the work of eminent Writers, Filmmakers, Artists or Chefs who have spent a lifetime honing their crafts, even in reputed papers and magazines, which layman like us take as the gospel.

Why I wonder, it cannot be made mandatory to qualify to be a Critic through first learning the subject of your condemnation, with practise sessions and evaluations that you need to pass before being given a free hand to say/write anything that comes to your mind in formal media.

In my view, a Literary Critic and also an Editor in a Publishing House equally, should qualify for their roles, after courses along with practise sessions – as is mandatory in teachers training courses, by going through the rigour of writing a book themselves and of making submissions to five publishers at least, to see how rejection notes and scathing reviews feel. A Film Critic should try making one documentary at the least, and similarly Theatre, Music, Dance and Food Critics go through Practise Sessions in their fields. Perhaps, if nothing else, through formal training, Critics will learn to have respect for other people’s work and put forth their views objectively, in less deprecating words.

As for Authors, Filmmakers, Artists, Chefs, who so readily shove other people’s work into the shredder through scathing Criticism for us to laugh at and also applaud their brilliance, all I can say is this: how would you feel if you go to your child’s school one afternoon, to see from afar a child being publically flogged, then go up close to discover it is your own child that is beaten blue-black.

Recording My Thoughts

16th Jan, 2014:

That which I find most difficult, almost impossible to forgive, even of those I’m close to, is personal disrespect, ignoring, way over my intolerance of betrayal, treachery, hypocrisy, and all else. The way I often deal with it is coldly cutting the person out, at times for life, even at risk of being labelled arrogant.

26th Jan, 2014:

In the span of my vision now – there is beauty, peace and tranquillity. Yet I go searching the world over, rather than looking close, drawing from within myself, this recipe of love and humanity.

 9th Feb, 2014:

We always tend to equate other people’s aspirations based on our own, and judge their contentment and success quotient based on it. As children, we assume everyone wants to come first in academics and sports, then get into the best professional colleges, go on to earn the best pay packets to buy all money can buy, and then predictably aspire to marry the richest guy or the best looking girl and have lovely children for whom we again have the same cycle of aspirations. Why don’t we delve beyond our own dreams and benchmarks for happiness and success to notice some may have different and do not conform to ours.

Firmly I Stood

                                                                                              

Firmly I Stood:

A moonless night it was

Stars were shining bright

Calm and quiet was the sea

Though waves lashed its sides

Foam caressing my feet I stood

Even as the sand below sank deep

While the soft waves returning to sea

Washed away sand from around my feet

It was, as life caresses my feet gently at times

Yet also pulls the carpet rudely from right under

So resolutely I dug my feet into the sliding ground

Waiting for waves to return with sand to firm my feet

 

A Chapter Preview of “Across Borders”

(Click on the picture to enlarge)

A Chapter Preview of – “Across Borders”

The first time they meet is in the lavishly decorated lobby of a renowned luxury hotel in the heart of Calcutta on Chowringhee Road. Sumitra has arrived early for their lunch appointment, having read of his punctuality and discipline in magazine articles. Though staying at the same hotel, he has told her he will be going out, to return in time for lunch with her at one o’clock. Sumitra quickly visits the washroom by the poolside, checking whether her make-up, hair, and the pleats of her aqua-blue-georgette embroidered sari are in place. On returning to the foyer, she sits on a sofa facing the main doorway, so she can see him come through it. She is certain of recognizing him from pictures of his she has seen in newspapers. Every time the door swings open, a liveried guard holding it for a guest after a bow; she looks in its direction expectantly. 

 

Sumitra is slightly nervous about the meeting, not quite sure why he wants to meet her. She distracts herself, looking at the twinkling lights of the chandeliers illuminating the place with their tender light. At first he had sent her a hand-written letter, about how he had loved her performance in her latest movie and would like to meet the real person behind the sterling performance. As a successful actor, she receives fan-mail regularly, each of which she reads in reassurance of her continuance to rule as a star. But this particular letter was different, in that it was written on an official letter-head paper and was crisp and business-like. He wrote that he would like to talk to her telephonically and then meet her if she did not mind. Sumitra knew of him, even held him in high regard from media reports she had read; so she replied to him giving her telephone number.

 

Staring at the streaks of light emanating from the prisms of a chandelier now, Sumitra wonders if he wants to offer her a role in a movie he might be producing. She does not know of him being in the film-production business, but then people diversify all the time, she thinks. After another swing of the door, she looks in its direction to notice a man of average height and regal bearing, wearing a black sweatshirt and brown jacket over olive-green trousers, walk with brisk confident strides in her direction. She instantly recognizes him. Sumitra stands up, and he offers her his hand to shake. She instantly feels the power of his persona through the firmness of his grip. The next thing she notices is his eyes, which are mesmeric. They seem to be fiercely drawing her into them, even while radiating warmth. Sumitra feels awestruck in his presence, as if caught in the current of his individuality.  

 

It seems as if they are standing in a magnetic field, inexplicably drawn to each other, finding it difficult to break away from the other’s gaze. Surreal forces acting between them seem to be pulling them together. Though they have never met before, it is as if they have known each other for long. Slowly they walk to one of the restaurants of the hotel, initiated by his guiding her in the direction with a nudge on the back of her shoulders. The captain of the restaurant smiles warmly at the doorway, ushering them to a cosy table for two. They sit down, after a waiter pulls out their chairs with a bow. He again looks deep into Sumitra’s wide, almond-shaped eyes, as though trying to reach into her soul, his own clear and calm as a still lake.

“I knew I was going to like you more in person,” he says, smiling.  

 

Sumitra smiles back shyly, as he continues holding her gaze intently. Then he shifts his attention to the menu card the waiter is holding up in front of him. He orders a bottle of beer, asking her what she would like. After a moment’s hesitation, she decides on a glass of beer. The waiter leaves, to promptly return with a bottle and two glasses, and then pours the bubbly liquid into their respective glasses. A few sips of the chilled beer seem to soothe Sumitra’s flustered nerves, as she sinks back comfortably on her cushioned chair. He asks her about her work which further puts her at ease, as that is familiar territory. As passionate about her work as she is, Sumitra happily tells him about her current roles and movies. Then she speaks of the characters she has played, as well as those she hopes to play in the future. Sumitra soon tells him about the death of her husband, feeling secure in talking to him, and on being a single working mother to two school-going children.  

 

He on his part shares with her stories of his days with the British army and experiences of the World War II. Sumitra listens attentively, enthralled by his exposure. He also tells her about his various businesses, with details of the charitable works they fund. He is as passionate about his work as her, but Sumitra finds hers paling in significance as compared to his philanthropic work, which makes such a difference to the world. She has read of it, but hearing the details now she is further in awe of him. After two bottles of beer shared between them, without accompanying snacks or appetizers, they each order portions of grilled fish with sautéed vegetables and bread-rolls. Both are disciplined about their diet and lifestyle. She for the obvious reason of maintaining her weight and attractiveness for an acting career that demands it, now that she is nearing forty years; he to remain fit and active.  

 

Having exchanged letters and spoken telephonically has not prepared them for the way they get along in person — like fuel and fire. Sumitra intermittently feels shy, unable to control the racing of her heart, powerless to harness its acceleration from a trot to a steady gallop. He is like a stallion, raging to go, waiting for her to loosen the reins. Horses are incidentally one among his passions in life. He goes riding on his favourite mare he calls Rani, every morning.

“You know something, Sumitra,” he says conspiratorially, bending towards her over the table, “as soon as I met you, I felt my blood gush, just as it is every time I see a horse.” 

Sumitra bursts out laughing at the comparison, then composing herself, says softly, “I’m really flattered, considering horses are your first and childhood love, as you mentioned earlier.”

“Well, that’s the truth lady,” he replies nonchalantly, still looking intently into her eyes, “I don’t know how better to describe how I feel.”

 

After lunch as they stroll along the corridor towards the hotel’s lobby, Sumitra realizes she does not want to part with him yet. There seems a bizarre connection between them. She does not want to break this spell, but realizes how unreasonable the idea is. After all, he is going back home to Vishnuganj the next morning. He checked into this hotel in spite of a house in Calcutta, for a meeting with a foreign client who is staying here, this evening. They are at the end of the corridor near the elevator, when abruptly he turns to face her.

“Sumitra, don’t go yet,” he says firmly, looking earnestly into her eyes “come upstairs, I’d like to show you what I do, its’ all in a folder for a presentation I will be making to my client this evening.”

Surprised at the request, but compelled by her own urge to stay, she finds herself silently nodding in agreement, following him into the lift.

 

In his suite, sitting on the sofa in the living-area, she flips through the pages of the folder detailing his businesses and charitable organizations. He is seated close to her, leaning back comfortably on the sofa. Sumitra is acutely conscious of him watching her.  She turns to glance at him sideways, when unable to resist, he slowly runs his fingers through her long flowing hair. Then encouraged by her silence, her not stopping him, he continues with firmer strokes. 

“Don’t worry Sumitra,” he says, noticing her uptight position, her firmly upheld head, sensing her dilemma, “things are not always in our control. Leave the steering of your life to God. He has a route chalked out for each one of us; we are mere rear-seat riders.”

Sumitra tries to relax, but the tension within her only grows. By now fiercely drawn to him both mentally and physically, she nestles closer to him and involuntarily places her head on his shoulder.

 

He encircles the back of her shoulders with his right arm, continuing to cradle her head on his right shoulder. After a few brief moments when she lifts her head, she finds him watching her curiously. As their gazes meet, seeing the flaming desire in his light brown eyes, unable to control her own yearning, she tilts towards him, and their lips touch in a flash. Then without much ado they are locked in a passionate kiss. Their kiss is electrifying, sending shock waves through their body and mind, as they continue to kiss breathlessly. Taken aback by their reckless passion, but with no power to restrain themselves they get up slowly, arm in arm they walk towards the bedroom. Sumitra has been lonely for a very long time. As attracted as she feels to this man, she cannot hold herself any longer. The age difference between them, his grey hair and the deep lines on his face, are overshadowed by his lean, toned and athletic form. But in reality it is his mind that has ignited hers; the physical longing is a manifestation of that mental attraction she feels. 

 

Sumitra is willing to throw caution to the wind, in allowing him to make love to her, even if it is only this one time, never to see him again. He is surprised at his own longing, brought on by his immense fondness for this woman with large, innocent, dreamy eyes and a voluptuous, shapely mouth. She has a radiant youthful face, and the most endearing smile he has ever seen, which caught his attention while watching her perform on screen, compelling him to meet her. In bed in each other’s arms, now stripped to their skin, with her soft and supple body against his lean, muscular frame, he feels blessed for this rush of passion in the dusk of his life. He kisses and caresses her tenderly all over, as she reaches out to his fingers and mouth hungrily, craving for more, and more… 

 

Excerpts from Across Borders, in the words of the protagonist Maya…

(Click on the picture to enlarge)

Excerpts from Across Borders, in the words of protagonist Maya…

Chapter 1: That day in 1948, Kalpana and I left to cross over to another life with Ronjit uncle across the Pakistan border. There was no Bangladesh yet and was not going to be for a long time. Mihirpur is a small town near the city of Dacca, in erstwhile East Pakistan, currently Bangladesh. I was about to transcend the border of my childhood. After the age of eight, I was sucked into adulthood like quicksand. It would only be fifteen years hence that I would again cross the border, back into India. After my graduation in 1964, I would return to work, marry, raise a family and live the rest of my life on the Indian side. A few years later, in 1971, the home that I grew up in was to become a part of Bangladesh, no longer of East Pakistan, as when I would leave it. As the country was re-contoured into Pakistan, Bangladesh and India ensuing much turmoil, so did my life across its border in developing three distinct identities – childhood, adolescence and adulthood – get chiselled by the rough hands of time and experiences…

 

Chapter 5: My mother’s helplessness in the face of father’s treachery always came to mind in times of indecisiveness like this. It propelled me to stay on in Dacca, in spite of the arsonist mood I was enveloped in. Though I was to never literally take up arms, I was intrinsically combating with life itself. How then could external forces deter my battle to win a good life, to hoist the flag of my success in front of my father? Therefore education and resultant economic autonomy I chose over the security of life at the time, deciding to leave East Pakistan only on completion of my final examinations. My personal experiences of the riots still give me the shudders. Even now, I wake up from sleep after vivid dreams of the violence, breaking out in a cold sweat as if I were in the midst of it…

 

Chapter 6: After the outbreak of the riots and attacks on a number of girl’s schools and hostels, it is difficult to pre-empt what may happen next, so all of us girls have vacated the hostel. However, of the twenty-two of us, only four of us who are Hindus, are in actual danger of our lives, if detected. As our truck rolls out into the neighbourhood, we can hear agonizing screams, as people are running crazily pushing one another, overturning wheelbarrows of fruits and vegetables, trampling over the crushed as well as fresh ones they might have just bargained hard for. There are small to large fires everywhere, with a putrid burning smell mixed with that of blood, sweat and fear. People are running arbitrarily — not sure in which direction. They are unsure of who is killing whom, not even aware if the man running alongside is a potential slayer, to escape the vandalism that has erupted on the streets.

There are lungi clad men on the trot, with lathis, daggers, spears and burning torches, against the fading light of the setting sun. All shutters of shops are either closed or are being frantically pulled down, as those late to react will be looted and ransacked, lucky if they can manage to save their lives. People are making a dash for shops or godowns still open, in a bid to hide, not sure if they should stop to pick up a wailing child separated from the mother in the frenzy. There are partially burnt hulks of cars, serrated holes in place of their windows and windshields, dotting the city like campfires in a National Scout Jamboree amidst pitched tents, silent witnesses to the mass destruction and massacre. Thick smoke is wafting about, heavy with the stench of burning flesh, tyres and charred cars, buses and rickshaws.

There are pools of blood on the pavement, where a man might have been beheaded with one flash of a machete. The body, its skin ashen in death, has perhaps been removed by relatives or shop assistants after the rioters have moved ahead. Ambulances and police jeeps are rushing past, their blaring alarms merging jarringly, the red lights blinking furiously. Hospitals are thronged with the dead and the wounded; their mortuaries being combed in search of loved ones, in earnest prayer that they are not found, giving hope a chance to linger. Photos of missing people have been taped on walls of markets and stores. By now, trips to newspaper offices clutching photos taken at weddings — whether the missing person’s own or attending that of loved ones, is forming queues…

 

Chapter 4: At the very outbreak of the riots, Sudeep arranged for Kalpana and Swapnil to leave for Calcutta immediately. He would not take any chances with their security. I was able to convince him telephonically of my need to stay back, promising to leave right after my exams. He himself stayed back in a refugee camp, in wrapping up his business for a few more months. The evacuees from Vishnuganj who took shelter in two mills as reported by The Pakistan Observer were 24000, though the unofficial estimate of the evacuees was 150,000. As I learnt of this in the safety of my Muslim friend’s house, knowing that Sudeep was in that count, I fervently prayed for his safety and reunion with his family. I constantly fought my fear of being brutally murdered if detected to be a Hindu. It truly was the acid test of my ability to fight any threat life would pose thereafter…

I quote V.S Naipaul here, from his book “India: A Million Mutinies Now” which aptly describes my attempts to define Maya –

“She was still part of the story she had told me, over two or three meetings. She was full of the emotions of it, and unable to see in it the historical progression that I thought I saw.”

Why Only Always Blame The Man???

Why Only Always Blame The Man???

 In the last few days, the incidents that led to the sudden and shocking death of Sunanda Pushkar – a woman I truly liked and could relate to in so many ways, has made me ponder on a number of issues relating to the emotional and moral health of my own gender.

Why do we women allow ourselves to be sucked into the whirlpool of our own overwrought emotions, over the anomalies of our men? Why can’t we keep our calm and help maintain the equilibrium that is so essential to staying afloat in a raging sea of suspicion and jealousy. Often it is the desperate flinging of our nerves, as in the way a drowning person his limbs in a raging sea, that results in taking us down, crashing us out against the hard ground reality of men’s inherent need to humour their self-image by way of welcoming if not encouraging any attention that comes their way. We women, however independent or successful, tend to make our man the centre of our world and any intrusion into our cosy island of dreams, topples the applecart of our sense of security or well-being in the world. The sad case in point I’m trying to make here is that of Sunanda Pushkar and Shashi Tharoor, and the controversy over Mehr Tarar.

It is also true that a lot of times it is we women, like I think was the case with Mehr Tarar, who make a dive for another woman’s man, throwing him baits in the form of exaggerated attention he cannot turn down let alone overlook. We go all out to enthral him if we find him mentally or physically attractive and then wish the world will term our fixation as friendship, admiration, respect, or whatever else but illicit. Would we allow such a friendship or equation to blossom if it came to our own man? If not, do we stop to wonder how it would feel to be swamped in that woman’s jealousy, insecurity or the sense of not having her man’s attention solely on herself like it is any woman’s desire?

There are some of us women who will cover our own men in canopies of possessiveness and insecurity, declaring he is shy and introverted, and not allow him to socialize even with our women friends, with the smug satisfaction that we have him reined in. Which man I wonder, shy or otherwise, would not like to be in a group of women, some of whom may actually like shy men. We go all out to woo another woman’s man, under the pen name of Email, Twitter, Facebook and Phone friendship, almost hounding him with all these gadgets now at our disposal, and the smarter his woman or the more physically attractive, it enhances our self-image at our capacity to allure such a woman’s man. Would we like our own man to receive calls, emails, texts or any other communication from a woman repeatedly in the name of friendship??

I am no fan of Shashi Tharoor, nor have any inclination here to take up his cause. What really interests me is the cause of the self-preservation of women. It is in that interest that I would like to see us women rise above our insecurities, live fruitful lives, and concentrate on the enhancement of our own living, rather than the bringing down of another woman, or even the moral enhancement of our men.  It is by far easier to change ourselves, our thinking, our perspective, rather than dreaming to change another, even if it be our own man.  So let us allow him to make that resolution to change or he never will, perhaps all we can do is lead him to think on the lines of it.  For whom we can only truly change is ourselves.