Ghost from the past ( by Sanghamitra Nath)

 

My association with my grandparents was for a very brief period of time as they left this world before I could grow up to tell  ALL of their stories. All I remember about those days is specifically about my grandfather who was very gentle, humble and used to give us his childhood books to read. He was very quiet almost in a mystical way. Since we lived far away from both our grandparents, we used to visit them only once a year that too for a few days and all that came to an end very quickly as they passed away too soon. 

My childhood days were  painted by the colorful antics of my elderly aunt. She  replayed the role of  my  beloved grandparents-in fact, she in a way  carried their legacy. I remember about my grandma's house, in which my aunt used to live after grandma's death...I recall the deep brown ceramic mugs (now lost forever, don't know where they are...), the deep green wooden reading/ writing  table , the colors started peeling off much before I could even begin to describe how it looks like...and of course the embroidered cushion covers, the crochet work...the backyard garden with lemon plants, big trees bearing local fruits...and the "family well".   The well from which we used to draw water...for bathing,  cooking, washing etc. etc. as there was no other source of water in those times... ( The well is called  "Kua" in our native language)

In that house, the smell that lingered  was that of the raw green mango pickles in bottles filled with mustard oil left for drying in the sun.

My aunt was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi and used to quote him often.

So many years have passed by since then...now our entire family has changed...they no longer follow the quotes of Mahatma Gandhi. Perhaps, with the death of my grandpa, grandma and now, with  the days remaining in the lives of my ailing aunty, an era has come to an end, an era that signified innocence and simplicity, truth and love.

An End of Innocence, perhaps.

I am not sure whether we can give as much love as they gave  or go through as much hardships as they went through...maybe it is simply not in us or is it because we have become too harsh with the changing times while dealing with life's brutalities ?

I do not know yet I know this much that an entire lifetime of memories will still linger in my mind....perhaps these memories, this attempt of looking into the past will force me to embrace that old, simple life into the folds of my new life until I feel satisfied that I have done enough.

Perhaps nobody will listen to the echoes of the ghosts from the past but they are still there if we care to listen ...so much love and wisdom is buried in these memories, if we care to find.

Never Let Me Go

( dear city of joy, didn't want to bid goodbye without a smile )


~

The leaves of the plants once put in our flower vase are turning yellow. They are going to fall off anytime now. In their place, new light green baby leaves are emerging ...such is the cycle of life...the new gives way to the old...and the old ? The old vanishes somewhere...into the folds of some memory that we once used to have, which is no longer relevant perhaps.

So, the plant mimics my life. Dear friends, I am leaving this city forever. I am leaving my place which I used to call my dear home in a few days. I am going to a new city. And ironically, this new city will also turn out to be like that plant in the vase...one day, we are going to bid farewell to the new city too and march on to another city...

People who get extremely and intimately too attached to everything that they meet on their way, people who are like me, cannot handle such a transition with ease. I get too attached to objects and people too soon. That is why I crave for some kind of everlastingness.

Something that will stay forever.

But as I am growing up, I am learning that everything including this life that you and I have do not last forever. Everything is transitory.

We love, we get attached and one day it is gone...be it your home, your loved ones or your feelings that  gave you some kind of security...even feelings and thoughts that we lovingly and tightly held since childhood are gone now...

I vividly remember the first day I arrived in Kolkata. After the flight landed in the airport, we took a taxi ...the taxi drove past rows and rows of slums... children bathing in the street with abandon...women drying clothes...the chaos, the noise, the heat and the dust..the big trees..cotton trees with big dark green fruits hanging over the branches...so many of them...people talking in loud voices because the noise coming from the vehicles around them are even louder...the rich and the poor co-existing with not much gap between them either in terms of housing or in their mental make up...I made a few friends among them...and today..

Today, I am leaving. From being a total stranger to an intimate friend, this city changed my life forever. Yes, that is a big statement to make, but it is also the truth of my life. I was never born in this city. None of my relative or family member live in this city. Yet, it took me up in its lap just like a new mother would take care of an adopted child. That an adopted child is capable of receiving so much love, I never had any sense of that before arriving in Kolkata.

I was only a human being before I came here. This city made me spiritual. You name any emotion- love, longing, caring, sorrow, loneliness, patience, sacrifice, happiness,melancholy, absence,  -any emotion worth experiencing was made to be experienced by me ...was forced into me ..by this city..in all its depths.

Only friends and relatives cannot make you human. 
The trees, the strangers, the sky and the air that you breathe in, day in and day out, everything has its role to play in your life....not only they make you and change you but they give you so much when no one else can give you...
I remember many a nights and days when I used to stare out of my window into the vast sky and into the big tree with many branches...I could find something that no human could give...at least in that moment of human absence, or lack- the sky , the tree and nature gave me company..

Now, I am leaving that very tree, that sky...and that home that I so lovingly decorated and caressed with my own hands like a mother would caress her own baby...for some it is just a change of place ...from one to another...but for me, it is like leaving everything that I got so used to, so attached to...

From now on, the mornings won't be the same forever. Neither the nights. And that tree which I used to look at everyday...right outside my window...

One day, I will come back, many years later to this same place and look at that tree once again. And the sky, my old house...Or who knows, I might forget it all...new memories will rise up in the place of old ones, forcing me to adapt and adjust ...like the plant in the vase, shedding its old leaves, giving way to the new ones...

But what about everlastingness then ?

Nostalgia. Looking back. Looking back with fondness or sorrow...

As long as these memories are tightly etched in my mind, even if new memories are forcibly pulling me by my hair and telling me to look elsewhere, they would be everlasting indeed.

To the river of secrets

{For centuries, the rivers of our country have been guarding so many secrets of the soul…

In our tradition, when one dies, the dead body is burnt in firewood and afterwards,  the ashes are immersed and floated away in the river…. Therefore, our ancient rivers know every secret of our soul which remains unknown even to this world or society …}

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I have always wondered.... Why should our differences come in the way of our love ? Why are we using our differences to create a rift in our love that we have for each other ? Does these differences really matter and if these really really matter, then love is needed  perhaps even more now than ever before to heal the wounds created by these differences.

Or maybe, you don’t need this love or healing because to you, these differences are so vital and of so much  significance … and  perhaps love would make them appear less significant.

Whatever it is but it is true that I need love to hold on to you but do you ?  Do you need love or do you just need to hold on to me with or without love… with me  sitting by your side, living under the same sky that shelters us and that is what you would love to call love …but I want a little more than that …I want to enter your soul and I want you to enter in my soul…to the extent that you and I no longer remain two separate entities…so that I can forget who I am and who you are…is that even possible ? I am sure, it is …in my dreams, in my imagination but most of all, in my daily efforts to reunite us, each moment, each day…

Are you even aware of what is going on in my mind ? about the thoughts that I am having about you and me ? Perhaps not …

And that is why my thoughts are so precious…I love you not only in reality and through my actions but also in my thoughts..everyday  my thoughts live up to my expectations of a perfect love…

Yes, I am that kind of a girl.

I do not come from a broken life. I have a life, a good one and that too, that fulfills all your criteria and standards of a good life.

But I come from a broken heart. 

My soul cannot reach most of you. So I came this far in search of a perfect life in spite of having a good life.
Yes, I know that millions of people are homeless and friendless. Still, I am looking for something more than that ….

You see, I have my ideals firmly placed in my heart which I have been compromising for too long but compromising  does not mean that I will not keep thinking about what I ideally want to have.

That which God does not give us like -  love, peace and fulfillment, I will try to get them.

 I will try even if I don’t get them.

There are three ways that I feel fulfilled:

In trying and searching, I feel half fulfilled…

In dreaming and imagining that I have got them, I am more than half fulfilled …

and

In believing that one day, I will get near them and acquire them, I feel ultimate fulfillment and happiness.

Thus, happiness for me is : believing in the near impossible.

Maybe, it seems to you that I am talking like a frustrated child but I am not a child. A child may not think consciously but I am writing & thinking with full knowledge and awareness.

It does not matter whether you call me a fool, a crazy girl, or something else,  I will still continue to think like that.

You will never think like me and I will never think like you.

 And sometimes, when we do think like each other, we call it love.

I am grateful for the things that God gave me and I want them not replaced but reformed with more feelings, more love and more attachment and connection. It is not with the things that I have but with the gravity and depth of the things and the dimensions of the things…

Also, I need something extra, something extraordinary that is there in my visualization and one day my visualizations will take form, I believe.

I am not ignorant.

 I am aware that I might never get what I want. In fact, I have a doubt that the things that I want may not totally exist also.

But I like to doubt also. Because in doubting, there is 50:50 chance !!

So rather than not dreaming, not wanting and not wishing at all…let me at least dream, wish and then doubt it all…

Let me fantasize and visualize and only after that, I will throw all of it  away in your waters  where you will secretly guard my secrets forever…

Because you know that the soul has a life of its own…