अर्ज़ किया है...

ये पहाड़, ये वादियाँ
ये फूल, ये पत्ते

पहाड़ों के गले से लगकर
मचलती ये नदी

रंगों का ये हसीन खेल
ये पंछी, ये तितलियाँ,
ये बरगद, ये बेल

सब देखना चाह्ती हूँ,
पर तुम्हारे साथ..

देख रही हूँ, महसूस कर रही हूँ
ये सब बसे हैं
जैसे तुम्हारे नस-नस में
छेड़ रहे हैं ये तुम्हारे मन के सुर-तान को..
जब देख रहे हो इनको तुम,


मुझे भी दिखाओ,
क्या देख रहे हो तुम
क्या महसूस कर रहे हो,
मुझे भी महसूस करने दो

खोए-खोए से, इन नज़ारों को सुन रहे हो तुम
और हलचल सी हो रही है मेरे मन में..

कहाँ हू मैं, तुम्हारे ख्यालों में?
इन फूलों के साथ, हवाओं के साथ
इन नज़ारों के साथ,
मुझे भी तो शामिल करो अपनी ज़िन्दगी में !


अनिन्दिता 16.12.2002

Photograph source: Internet

The Guardian Angel

The small pilgrimage town of Deogarh in Jharkhand, 2010. Pallavi, the professor of organic chemistry in a sub-urban Women’s college has a lot to reminisce about. She has a fulfilling life, a happy family, a caring husband, doting in-laws and two beautiful twin daughters.

Looking out of the window of the small but well ventilated staff room, she feels a maddening familiarity in the air. The climate, the sunshine, the spring leaves and the fragrance of the air are all very familiar and brings nostalgia and madness to the otherwise calm and composed Pallavi. This, she has been experiencing since years.

The familiarity of such days of spring, time and again, takes her to her teenage years, spent at the posh three-storey bungalow of her grandfather in Daltonganj, the headquarters of Palamau district. She has always been in love with the beauty of that place. She loved her Palamau. Her forefathers have been aristocrats in the district since the British regime. Her grandfather once told her that Pa-la-mau stands for the three blessings, which nature has bestowed to the place: Pa for Palash, La for Lac and Mau for Mahua. And thus the intoxicating, beautiful Palamau. And in this backdrop, bloomed the love of a coy, quiet and introvert teenager.

Good in academics though, physics and chemistry were the subjects she needed help in. So her father hired Dilip, a young lad, belonging to the neighboring Chhatra district, as her tutor. Dilip was a student at the Science College, staying at a nearby hostel.

Dilip was just her opposite. A very cheerful person, he was an outright extrovert and loved to talk, although he maintained a composed persona whenever he visited Pallavi’s mansion. He hardly talked to Pallavi’s mother, grandmother or aunt; he would rather nod in a tamed way to offer ‘thanks’ when one of the ladies of the house would place a cup of tea and two thin-arrowroot biscuits before him while he helped Pallavi in solving the chemistry or physics problems. He would look so embarrassed while accepting the monthly tuition fee from Pallavi’s wealthy father that Pallavi wondered whether accepting wage for one’s labour was a sin!

Time flew during those years. Pallavi was a student of Std VII when she made Dilip her mentor for chemistry and physics. As years passed by, Dilip became her mentor not only for these two subjects, but for practically all the aspects in her tiny life. Dilip was the toughest critic of her literature works, the essays, short stories which she wrote and Dilip was the most lenient guardian when she came home with a hopelessly low score in chemistry.

He showed her different ways of looking at the world; he explained to her why her mother was so very vigilant about her during her teenage years. Sociology suddenly meant a new interesting subject to her and she was awakened to the terribly hard life which the peasants in her Palamau, faced. Dilip showed her that the world was totally different across the high walls of her grandfather’s bungalow. Now and then Dilip would also talk about some uprisings by some people, here and there, aimed at, according to him, a better livelihood and opportunity for them. But Pallavi hardly could make out anything out of these incidents. Her life was restricted to the high school, her three or four girl friends and her family. Apart from the men in her joint family, Dilip was the only man she knew and interacted with.

During her first year in the Government college, Pallavi met Subhash and fell in love with him but the relation was destined to break in a year’s time, when Subhash’s father was transferred and the family left the place. Subhash bid good bye without any promise for future.

Pallavi was left heartbroken and lost. It was then that Dilip narrated the tale of his own love affair with a girl from Chhatra and how she was married off to someone else and how Dilip coped and life moved on. Dilip explained that life has to move on and it is okay to carry on with one’s life even when someone leaves you mid-way. ‘Good girls’ can break their relation too, it is okay. There is no point in lingering the relation at one side only. Therefore, Pallavi regained herself slowly. She knew, if her mentor could have had a relation which did not materialize and still carry on with life so cheerfully, it is not wrong for anybody to leave behind the past. Later, she learnt that Dilip had only cooked up the story of a girl from Chhatra, just to help her out of the dilemma!

By the time she was in the third year of Chemistry honours, she had developed an affinity for Dilip. She did not know whether she wanted to spend her life with him; but she knew that Dilip was a perfect person. She unknowingly imitated him and unconsciously picked up his mannerisms. Whatever his thoughts were, to her, those were the ultimate truth. For her, Dilip was the best philosopher she ever knew.

Gradually, Pallavi realised that she loved him and also believed that one day he would ask her to marry him. When, she did not know; but she knew that it would happen. She never spoke it out before anyone, not even mentioned it in her daily diary but she was his, she knew.

During a trip to her cousin’s, at Bokaro, she collected some dozen Archies’ greeting cards for him, thinking, one day she will hand them over to him. While at a college trip to Puri beach, she bought a delicate decorative peacock made of sea-shells, knowing that one day it would be her gift of love to Dilip. And her collection grew as her love grew and the wait grew longer. She did not know whether Dilip even had one iota of knowledge about her feeling.

During the spring seasons, Dilip would insist that they sit at the balcony of the second floor to have the feel of the fresh air and listen to the cuckoo while solving the chemistry equations and sums. Those special moments made a permanent place in her mind.

During her third year, as the final exams were approaching, Dilip’s visit became erratic. He would be absent from Daltonganj at a stretch and then arrive for a day or two. The family wondered why this person, now in his early 30s, having helped Pallavi in tiding over all these years of academics, now was being so infrequent when Pallavi was to just finish her graduation.

Her university exams finished and she all the more longed for Dilip. Throughout her examination, he was absent. Now that she was almost a graduate, her family already had started searching for a suitable groom for her. Pallavi did not know what her stand should be. If only her guardian angel was near her to help her solve her dilemma.

On a similar spring afternoon, as Pallavi was seated at that same balcony, she heard the panicked voices of the ladies of the house. She rushed down to the ground floor, only to find her aunt beating her chest and mourning. Pallavi’s brother, with a pale and frightened face told her that there was a landmine burst at the police station where her uncle had been recently posted and that her uncle along with most of the persons in the station had lost their lives.

Pallavi’s uncle, a respected high official in the police, was recently posted at a station near Betla as a member of a special force, in an effort to combat the attacks on the police and government offices, which had in some past years become rampant. Pallavi doubted if these incidents had anything to do with the uprisings Dilip would, at times, passionately talk about some years back. In past two years Dilip did not mention anything about those.

The grief of death covered the house like a shroud. Her uncle’s body was identified only with the help of the gold chained Allwyn watch he had been wearing. Her family was struck with a mixture of grief, anger and feeling of revenge. They wanted the worst of punishments for the persons who had committed the crime and this aristocratic, influential family would use all its power to ensure it. Pallavi again yearned for Dilip. How much she wished he was by her side!

Just two days later the grim silence of the mourning mansion was yet again torn by the panicked voices of the men of the house. Two of the persons who were apparently involved in the landmine blast were killed in a combat. The newspaper had published the pictures of the dead. Pallavi waited for her turn to look at the newspaper.

Like a sudden landslide, the news article cruelly snatched the piece of earth from beneath her feet! She saw the photograph of Dilip, an injured and dead Dilip, with eyes shut and blood oozing out from the head. Whatever she could gather from the print in the newspaper, before losing her consciousness, read like this: “Dilip Kumar, the area commander of the warfare group from Chhatra and his companion, who were apparently involved in the landmine blast two days back, have been killed in a combat, near Hazaribagh, last night……”


Anindita Baidya
08 April 2010

The Choice Mantra

Life always offers us choices, they say. We need to choose the best or at least the most appropriate one for us.

While employing our best reason in making our choice, we sometimes need a guide or may be a Mantra.

My child has one.

In making choices, the Mantra goes like, “Akkad Bakkad Bombai bo…assi nabbai poore sau…” the next few lines you know!

Her life’s dilemma is solved by this potent Mantra. Be it for choosing the book she wants me to read to her at bedtime, be it for deciding on the chronology of all the books she wants me read to her one by one or for negotiating which one she will read and which are the ones her dad has to; the "Akkad bakkad….” has the potential to facilitate a nuclear deal!

The other day she was romanticizing whether the world would be an all-princess one or an all-spider-man one. She employed the "Akkad Bakkad....". The Mantra’s forecast was that the world will be an all-princess one. Yes, ours is!

The Mantra has the flexibility for negotiation too. If you have a particular decision already made in mind, you can decide where to start the count from. The age old practice has proved that there is nothing wrong in manipulation! Also, you can, if you want to, count again and again until serendipity brings forth the right choice.

So, as our child continues to decide between ‘dosa’ and ‘sandwich’, ‘shoe’ or ‘sandal’, ‘frock’ or ‘capri’, I ask my hubby if she would choose the man in her life with equal ease and make our life as easy!

After all, she is so liberal in offering us choices. Beat it: while playing the chess, she offers, “Kaun se colour ke sikke logey? Kyunki main toh white loongee”




Anindita
24 March 2010
(Photos from internet)

For the soul, which is all ready to leave the mortal body and soar towards eternity; which is all set to be one with the infinity, it is not enough that it itself unfastens from the shackles of earthly bondages....

The ones who have been family, friend and relative to the body, with whom the stage of the drama called life was set up, have also to let go off this soul.

And not from the pages of religious texts, not from the voices of Guru that I have learnt it. My realisation occurred, when I was sitting by the bed of my father, who had been hospitalized in the medical college in Ranchi, following a severe brain hemorrhage and coma. My brother accompanied me throughout that night, taking turns to sleep on the floor on a thin bed-sheet. Neuro-surgical departments do not have any preferential ICU, since all the cases are critical. So there were about ten patients in that room, all in serious condition.

My brother would go out for some time, to have a stroll and at times he had to rush to the medicine counter to fetch some medicines to be added to the intra-venous drip. We had forced mother to go home and have some rest since she had stayed during the entire previous night and day, before we siblings could fly to Ranchi.

During that one night, sitting near my father, I had nothing else to do except watch all the other patients. There were newborns who awaited brain surgery, there was a patient, seemingly awake with no sense at all; his wife reported that he was there since past four months and their children had returned to their respective work places.

I did not know if my father was fighting for life or was trying to break away from the shackles of life. His breath was so loud and seemingly difficult yet he seemed totally unaware of the pain. The nurse would check the oxygen and drip frequently. I could not explain to myself whether he was unconscious or was under coma; I did not understand why he took so much time to come back to consciousness. I urged him to wake up but he did not hear anything. Once I had this idea too, that when he comes back, I will ask him to narrate his experience of the coma!

The nurse stayed awake overnight to monitor my father. Today I have a great regard for this noble profession of nursing. This nurse, knowing that her patient would not anyway survive, could have been relaxed; but no, she was so vigilant. Just like a soldier guarding her post, she guarded through the last night of my father. The unknown nurse, whose name I do not even know, carried on her responsibilities unfalteringly. How thankful I am to her today!

That was the single night, in my entire life that past or future did not, for once, matter to me. I had no worries, no thoughts except that I was living the hours, one by one. For the first time in life, that night, I experienced the clock striking 2,3,4, and so on....! That night rendered to me the life’s biggest lesson of living for the moment.

Next morning, during the visit of the doctor, it was confirmed that no medicine or surgery could help. While our world was all set to be shattered, the doctor was explaining the academics of my father’s condition to his young aspiring interns.

Before taking the flight to Ranchi, I had actually mentally planned my actions, in case father would continue to be in coma for long. After all, no one can say for sure, how long a coma can last. He had been suffering from diabetes and some kidney problems too and earlier that year I had been talking to my brother about the substantial saving we need to do in case we need to start dialysis, in future. We know, once dialysis starts, no one can have an account of the time and money.

All these thoughts did not occur that night. The night turned to dawn and then sunlight poured through the bright room. We siblings cleaned and powdered dad. After the arrival of my mother and some other neighbors, we were to return home when a friend asked my brother to stay back....I do not know whether it was destiny’s queer arrangement or just a practical plan.

That morning I had no clue as to what my prayer should be! Whether I should pray for my dad’s revival from coma, which would bring in other doubts regarding ability of the entire physical and mental faculty or whether I should pray for the emancipation of the soul! So I did not engage in any further analysis. I only could surrender to the will of the Almighty.

Back home, I had a good sleep after the meal and around sometime at three in the afternoon, I woke up with a very uncomfortable feeling only to doze off again after few seconds. But after few minutes or so, my sister-in-law woke me up to say that I had to rush to the hospital. I knew it. The finality was written all over her face. I asked her, “It’s finished?” almost knowing her answer. She nodded her head in affirmation.

So Baba was gone. In other words, the soul within the body whom we called Baba, had liberated itself to be one with the eternal whole from which it had come. We, the family had to let him go; neither our money, our savings, the insurances nor our positions and power could allure the soul to stay back. We had to let him go, we could not stop his journey, we knew no place where we could hide him from the all-permeating vision of providence, the way we, as children, would hide chocolates from father.

From that very moment onwards, no enemy, no friend, no passion, no hatred could bind the soul. The soul was a part of the one unending, perpetual, ever-lasting stream of light that has always been there and always will be.....

I and all others will be one with it one day!

This is the only reality I know of now; nothing else is, neither our earthly possession, nor our passion or hatred, nor achievements and triumphs...

Gatey, Gatey, Paragatey, Para Sam gatey
Bodhi svaha! Bodhi svaha!Bodhi svaha!

Gone, Gone, gone across to the other shore,
Gone utterly beyond..
Oh! What an awakening...

(The Heart Sutra)

The Homecoming

26 September, 2005, around 12 noon. We were in the midst of witnessing the breaking of many families, one by one. Two, three, four...the judge would quickly go through the cases one by one, and pronounce the couples as ‘no more-man and wife’. The divorce cases were done with ease, one after the other, quickly, in the family court in Bhopal.

Nikhil and I were also among the ‘family court cases’ that day, awaiting our turn for the judge to complete the ‘hearing’ for us. In the one or two hours that we had been sitting there, we witnessed breaking of many families.

My heart was beating loud. This was the first time I was visiting any court and was earnestly wishing and hoping that things are finalised at the first hearing itself! I did not want to wait longer. Neither did Nikhil. We had decided and that was it; we wanted things to be settled fast.

The tension was mounting and the buzzing courtroom was getting more and more noisy. The ambience of the courtroom was a far cry from the filmy courtroom we have watched on the television soaps or cinema screens.

We were sitting at the witness box, along with some other couples. The judge was seated on a high platform on her coveted chair and was flanked by more than four-five advocates in their shinning black coats and some couples were standing near the table. In short, the space near the table looked so crowded that I wandered if the judge could concentrate on individual cases. After sometime we could also see our advocate entering the courtroom and walking straight towards the judge’s table, to join the crowd. His gait was one that of a proud conqueror, with his pot-belly leading the way.

The judge would ask each of the couples if they had decided that they wanted to separate. And she would announce the closure of the case. That was it! I am sure the formalities and ‘balance sheet’ must have been decided earlier, out of the court and the event here was only a formality.

At the door of the courtroom, Baby Rakhi was cuddling comfortably in the arms of her care-taker. Rakhi was a seven month baby, staying at the Matri Chhaya –Adoption institution in Bhopal. She was visibly bored at being in the arms of the caretaker since so long and not being able to crawl around. To avoid any disturbance, whenever she opened her mouth, her caretaker would hurriedly move out of the court room lest she starts howling and disturbs the court proceedings. I could not help but laugh at the scene.

Rakhi looked so fresh and pretty, in a bright, crispy violet cotton frock. The caretaker was carrying an extra pair of knickers in a small thin yellow polythene bag. I could not take my eyes off Rakhi. I took her in my lap for sometime and filled my lungs with the lingering fragrance of Johnson’s baby soap and powder. But she again opened her mouth and before her sound would shake the courtroom, she was outside the room, howling, in the arms of the agile caretaker.

Suddenly we were summoned by the judge. My heart was pounding in a way that I could not hear anything else and a fear gripped my arms and feet and I was cold. I mentally allowed Nikhil to do all the answering. But at that very moment, I suddenly let go off my anxiety telling to myself, what will be, will be.

So the hearing session started and I expected it to be very long. ‘Who is Nikhilesh?’ she enquired; ‘Myself..’ Nikhil raised his hands. ‘Who is Anindita?’ I was still trying to get to the judge’s table and gosh! the ‘hearing session’ had already started. Short in height that I am, I had to raise my heels to make an eye-contact with the judge, raising my hand. Her next question was, ‘Who is Baby Rakhi?’ and the caretaker and the father figure of the Matri Chhaya known as Baba, pointed at the baby, now blissfully sleeping on the shoulders. To my utter surprise, the strict looking judge, Ms Indrani smiled affectionately and said, ‘She is asleep....take her back, don’t disturb her sleep’ and before we knew, she announced that our case was finalised and pronounced us the parents of Baby Rakhi! She instructed us to collect the Adoption deed the next day.

So, before we knew it, before we could even realise it, we were parents of this little baby, staying at the Matri Chhayaa, whom I have been meeting every Sunday, spending time with her, with a prayer that we develop familiarity before she comes home. The entire adoption process was initiated six months back and about a month back, we had filed the affidavit for adopting her and it was the Almighty’s mercy towards the expectant parents that adoption was finalised at the first hearing itself, very unusual as it is.

I asked the advocate again and again if it was really done, if we could take our baby home.

So, on 26th September 2005, while many couples were there at the court to break the relation, we were the only couple waiting for our chance for the judge’s hearing to build a family; a family, which was decided by destiny and soul, if not biology.

After an affectionate godh bhadai at Matri Chhayaa, our daughter came home, seated on the lap of her father, dozing off, with her head comfortably leaning on his chest. And as the clock struck midnight on 27th, our little haven was lighted up with the arrival of our child whom we had borne in our heart, mind, thoughts and prayers, all these years.......

ख्वाईशें

बाहों के दायरे में ,
आँखों के घेरे से ..
दहलीज़ के हद तक...
देखा, दुनिया को, झरोखे से..

शायद हैं और भी
किस्से-कहानियाँ,
शायद हक़ीकत
और भी है, जुदा
मेरी किताबों से...

हवा मिले जो
मेरे पंखों को,
जाकर देख आऊँ
दुनिया को, माँ!

मुझे सीखा दो उड़ना...
ज़रा मैं आसमान छू लूं, माँ!
खुली हवा, खेत-खलियान
बदन में लगा आऊँ, माँ!

चोट होती है क्या
दवा क्या होती है
सीख कर आऊँ, माँ!
ज़रा उड़ना तो सीखा दो मुझे,
मैं तुम जैसी बन जाऊँ, माँ!

जीवन साथी

पिरो रहा था वो
तारीफ़ों की लड़ी

मेरी आखों की
मेरी हंसी की
मेरे गालों की
मेरे बालों की

बहार की तरह खिल उठा है
ज़िन्दगी का हर कण जो मेरा
ठीक है....ये तारीफें हैं अपनी जगह
दस्तूर है शायराना, इस रिश्ते का

पर साथ रहना जब चाहिए सहारा इन बाहों को
रोशनी कम होने लगे आखों की
मुरझा जाए इस उम्र की अटखेलियाँ
मेरे साथी, साथ निभाना मेरा
जीवन की शाम होने के बाद

अनिन्दिता
09.09.1996
Photograph source: internet