‘A Bouquet of Random Thoughts on the Rain in Kolkata.”: in a Bengali magazine.
I’m very pleased to share…
‘A Bouquet of Random Thoughts on the Rain in Kolkata’, the original in English by Shuvashree Chowdhury(myself)
…translated by their editor Swapnanjan Goswami and published in the Bengali magazine, ‘Coffee Hous-er Charpashe’ shared lower down below.
1.I am sitting amidst an array of potted plants – ceramic shapes and hues inspiring my words. A crow, then another,swoon upon the railing eyeing me, perhaps longing for an empathetic thought. I break up two biscuits I’m having with tea, and place the crumbs in an earthenware bowl which has been theirs for long, to await their descent on my tiny offerings of love, so I may feel a union with my environment. Semi-ripe mangoes are glistening in the sun, on nature’s tree-basket lined by green leaves in all hues, as a palette awaiting a paint brush: I’m sitting at my mind’s easel, all senses alert.Two crows have picked up the biscuit scraps in their beaks, hopping about to dip in water as we do our biscuits in tea. I promptly get up to fetch their cup, but they nibble on the dry biscuit scraps, looking at me as if asking me to join them, likethey prefer my company over wetting their throats to enable them to crow louder. Is it that they are lonely or think I am, for who has time for crows and birds!
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2.It is a late morning now, in early June in Calcutta, and a light rain last night has quelled nature’s thirst. The immense heat of the last month has been cowed down, so I have the luxury of sitting outdoors till late in the day, to spend time with nature in simple pleasures. Though the rain last night has raised earth’s thirst levels, increasing the skies and earth’s libido as the day progresses, with intense humidity – leaving us perspiring profusely. This leading to the torrential rainshere that gives birth to two beautiful young damsels that East and West Bengal grow into, draped in lush green kaftans, that leads one to the Swayamvara that the festival of Durga Puja turns into for West Bengal, where her suitors come to Calcutta, from all over the world, to win her heart.
I hear the chattering of a multitude of birds now – thepigeons on terraces all around me, mynas hopping around, sparrows on trees, all distinct as instruments in a royal symphony conducted by firm hands of the crows, as they caw assertively.
It starts raining again, late into the morning, clouds still aroused – even though earth is weary after the whole night of their unhurried love making – exchanging woes humanity is causing them – the skies never-ending tearing up, then drenching the earth that isn’t remorseful, even if humanity is seeking respite from rain’s teary flogging.
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3.Four days of last October had gone by raining – it’smomentum then slow and reflecting like a train’s chugging into a platform, yet it cannot turn its engine off till reaching the Stop, even as it’s sound gets faint and distant as the rain is a mere trickle now – it’s sound overtaken by the chirping of a variety of birds flying past my view – hopping sparrow’stwitter abounding, yet crows out of my sight enforcing their vocal might. When suddenly their choir goes faint and then quiet but I can still hear the rain like a toy train chugging up amountain path, before it is nearing its halt at Darjeeling.
The variety of plants lining my balcony quiver, slight tremor of a wind propelling rain to keep chugging – I hear it intermittently through mild chirping with their lazy carousing,when in the distance I hear a tooting – perhaps the Alarm for someone still sleeping, to get on today’s late ten am rail coach, though he has missed the best journey in the morning rain, of the symphony of birds.
The rain has by now ceased – so has the sound of the train chugging come to a halt in my mind to remind me to get off mentally, and walk down the Station of Life, to my day’s domestic chores and then my writing, with diligence over an independence, so that I don’t care to define myself with it or to take myself seriously as I do my work, to care political and social labelling. As Creativity, is the use of one’s imaginationor original ideas to create something new and not what the world expects.
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4.April has always been our Norwester month, the ‘Kaal Baisakhi’ invigorating Bengal — preparing it for the harsh summer ahead were hailstorms common in my childhood. In an absolutely rain free April this year, in my memory slideshows now, I can still distinctly collect lumps of ice that fell like large marbles on my veranda in Sovabazar in North Calcutta, as sheets of rain thrashed the roads in front of me and people ran for shelter – these memories I now savour as ice candy saved in a bowl of reminiscences, its taste acting as life’s milestones.
It had rained heavily a few days this May, a cool breeze carrying shower jets to my lips one evening as I sat out on my balcony. I had savoured the rain, even as it swathed my skin in the semidarkness interspersed by the sparks of wild lightning. Through blurry lightshades around me washed in rain, I viewed my varied plants blush again to the sound of a wind chime clanging merrily, after they had almost beencrushed by harsh rays of the Sun cowering over them lining my terrace.
The main gate below had clinked open, I heard it three storeys up, through senses awakened by rain. A man in a blue umbrella, our house help had slithered out and was gone for long – I saw him, yet he denied it, claiming he was looking for Biscuit and Cookie our four-month-old kittens. This made me think – Global warming, explains, a change of season on earth’s stage, but what of a conspiracy of duplicity! We cannot do without our air conditioners round the year, along with all the gadgets we use in a world where the average age span of man is without doubt on the rise even if not the quality of a healthy life. As man in kitten’s guise is feigning innocence – feeling victimised, as if we are fools or are we, to fall for this hypocrisy of damaging the planet on one hand and seeking redressal on the other.
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5.The Hibiscus, I bring them to my desk every morningto enhance their days’ worth of a life – as on my terrace by evening they wither and spend a night falling out and dying.The varied coloured Joba in Bengali, red, pink, yellow, orange, and white, all dance in the rain around the year – the beauty they emanate just for a day, is more than I may radiate in my lifetime, even with honourable inspirations if I try to infuse empathy and sunshine into my words.
These flowers, especially the yellow, pink, and scarlet hibiscus bloom easily and daily and always smile – yet have a distinctly vivid though crisp life. Unlike the Orchids on my balcony or the pink Korobi (Oleander) in the front yard, that take long to flower but withstand the weather a longer time asI do memories and experiences that I weave into wreaths, with my green ideas on white.
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6.The lake in front of my balcony in Calcutta is a visual treat of nature’s bounty this late July morning. A fury, if you make out the nightlong deluge to be – when rains are late in other parts of West Bengal like Purulia, for harvesting.
My optimism on the rain and this flooding took an embarrassed beating – in empathising that my cook’s family back home was yet in-waiting for the season’s blessings. Yet I set forth to enjoy these precious moments sitting out looking at being transported as if to Venice, sipping my tea to the music of the wind chime that is my company across changes in times. The birds chirping, crows leading the chorus drew my attention to Sun’s rays now warming – to mentally fetch me back on a Gondola ride to reality, as breakfast he servedus with, “…in Purulia it’s raining now!”
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7.The rain splattered on my front porch, dripping noisily on the mosaic driveway – as leaves shimmered in light through the clouds of steam from my teacup catching my sight. Dollops of rain fell from the balcony shed, as the FM radio played into my senses trying to arouse in me words that still often fail me, after the deluge of soul crushing events and loss through the covid pandemic.
A medley of sounds, accompanying green sights during rain, trying to wrench out of my soul a jubilation to all that once spontaneously broke into song, but now is numb, shunning human connection.
Out cats – Milky & Pizza, look at me squarely, their green eyes demanding their portions of milk — as slowly in my mind I hear the chirping of birds assuring me – after the rain words cannot be far behind, in bursting the dam that had built in my mind.
As I write this, rain bursts from the sky that’s leaden and heavy, as a drenched sandbag of accumulated clouds weighing on my mind. Just as the rain, a shower of words will have to ease my sullen heart and writer’s block, and then help me follow my purpose in life to resuscitate the world.
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About the Author:
SHUVASHREE CHOWDHURY is the author of five works of literary fiction including novels ‘Across Borders’ and ‘Entwined Lives,’ a collection of short stories ‘Existences’ and two books of poems called ‘Fragments’ and ‘Trouvailles: My Moments of Yūgen’.
She spent over two decades in the corporate sector, in managerial capacities with top companies like Titan Industries (Tanishq), ITC Sheraton Hotels, Jet Airways, Shoppers Stop, Mafoi, Randstad and a few others, both in Chennai and Kolkata. She was a popular blogger on several public blogging sites, before turning a full-time writer. She is married to a senior journalist/editor with a national newspaper, also a reputed author of several books. After a long stint in Chennai, they now live in Kolkata.
shuvashree.chowdhury@gmail.com
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