Whispers and Words of M R Maiti

Seven decades and a half It has been that long Since the tyranny ended. The looters galloped away On their high horses Leaving us broken In parts and pieces.   Their horses today Graze on grassy highlands. And from top of their mount They laugh, Watching their vacant chairs Occupied by men well-chosen Still, tyrants in their own right.   Seven decades and a half We have built a lot But freedom goes either way. Free to rise, free to fall. Where do we go from here? So we don’t end up where we were Broken in parts and pieces. #HappyIndependenceDay #IndiaAt75

Dear Modi Ji, Thanks for the honour. It feels great to know that even after all these years, my achievements are brought to the fore and regarded in such a manner. Though, I feel you shouldn't have taken the trouble. I, anyway, receive a lot of love when everyone celebrates National Sports Day on my birthday. Now by renaming an award that was formerly dedicated to an erstwhile PM, you have dragged me into something I was never interested in. Politics. As usual, the tirade will follow. Congress lamenting: WHY? Your party commenting: WHY NOT? Amidst all this, the men and women who have done nothing but strive for success, who rarely receive the limelight will recede in shadows once again. Someone as competent as you must have seen this coming for I'm sure this wasn't deliberate. You had your heart in the right place and you just wanted to honour me. But this honour that you bestow on me is also accompanied by a sadness, a realisation that in light of our recent achievement, y...

They have gathered once again Like every other year In spite of the outbreak Plaguing the entire land God is their last resort Having lost their hopes in men God brought the pandemic God will bless this cursed land Or so they have come to believe.   They have gathered once again Out on the streets Listening tentatively To the promises made To the slogans in the air For in that moment All of it matters Their voice, their choice Or so they have come to believe.   They have gathered once again Glued to the screens Cheering the champions Who are well out of earshot A game of gentlemen Two play at a time The rest of them await their turn It's all spontaneous Or so they have come to believe.   They have gathered once again In a suspended ambience Glasses in their hands Smoke in the air Ash on the ground Boasting about Women they bedded Men they punched Unmindful of all the gatherings everywhere.   ...

  “We should have booked a four-wheeler for today,” suggests Ajay, taking a break from kick-starting his bike. Sooner or later, the wisdom of hindsight comes to all of us. And right now, it pours out of my friend, only to be frozen mid-air. Just like me, he is covered from head to toe in multiple layers. There is no one in sight except the two of us and the occasional vehicles passing by, halting at the sight of our thumbs out, only to refuse to give us a ride. “Maybe, we should chuck it and chill in Lachen itself.” NO. The voice in my head shouts then takes a moment to think, dials it down to a pleading voice: No no no. This can’t happen. We are not far from the homestay we had stayed last night. I find some comfort in that as Ajay now has to roll it downhill back to where we had begun in the morning. The owner’s daughter smiles at us from the balcony when we reach the homestay. She is a good company but right now I need to be someplace else. After all, we had come all...

Somebody whispers my name from the back. I ignore it for the umpteenth time, concentrating on the homework. Six to eight in the evening is called Prep time. Once the games period is over, we spend two hours in the classroom going through our books and notes. At least everyone pretends to. The two hours are spent scribbling on notebooks, playing TIC TAC TOE and for the most part poking the guy sitting in the front. "What!" I turn around, glaring at the boy who poked me. His name is Ujjwal, one of the infamous lot, the kind whom my mother warns to stay away from. “Here, see this,” he produces a piece of paper, completely unfazed by my irritation. I take a look at the paper and then at the teacher sitting in the front. Our English teacher. He is old of age and nearing retirement. For the entire two hours, he remains confined to his chair. And his nodding- off serves as an artistic inspiration for many, who crudely put it on paper. One of those many sketches is right befo...

  “So that’s why the name Varanasi,” Vishal uttered his epiphany out loud. “Varuna plus Assi?” “Obviously,” replied Somnath. “Didn’t you know that?” “Never thought about it. I guess, for me, it has always been Benares.” That was then, more than two years ago. As of this moment, Vishal could give a personalized tour of Benares, all by himself. And that is exactly what he has been doing with Sheth and Ajay for the past few days while Somnath was making arrangements for his wedding. Still, Vishal won’t go as far as comparing himself with the resident Benaresi, who according to his plan, has joined the three of them tonight. A day after he got married, miracle, huh? Well, things always line up for Vishal when it comes to these sorts of things. In this case, a custom called: Kaalratri, where the boy – scratch that – groom – no – husband cannot see his wife, post-dusk, one day after marriage. So here was Somnath, the oldest one of them, telling stories about the oldest city known; ...

On the shore  And the night is slipping through my hand  I fall into the sea  Like the empire built on the sand  The song going on in my head is interrupted by the rumble of the crashing waves. It brings me back to the present. Once again, gazing at the distant horizon, I had gotten lost in my thoughts. But then again, wasn’t that the whole purpose of coming here.  It was Subhodeep who had introduced me to this place. A friend of a mutual friend, he is one of the inmates at Sheetal Apartments, Juhu where I am staying temporarily. On my first day here, he did not lose a moment after I stepped through the door to announce that Ajay Devgn stayed on the ground floor. He related the story of some fortunate fellow who had gotten the opportunity to click a selfie with the actor. That evening, he showed me around, starting with ISCKON temple that was located nearby. There I had a Dabeli for the first time. Two of those and you don't need dinner , he told me. From there,...

Sometime in 2004 I must have dozed off. But suddenly I am awake. The screen is mostly dark. On concentrating further, I can make out a lake during night. There’s a man lying alongside it, whimpering in pain. Close to him sits a bespectacled boy who is terrified by the dark figures hovering in the air, circumventing the two of them. One of the dark figures breaks from the rest and swoops in, and on getting close to the man drains his face somehow. The man winces in pain. The boy tries to protect him, shooting a burst of light at the dark figures with the stick he’s holding. The figures are deterred for a moment but they double back, one by one, draining both the man and the boy. Just then a silver stag appears across the lake, driving all the dark figures away by its light. And the boy faints. I can make neither head nor tail of the scene. Somehow, I manage to sit through the rest of the movie. Why it is so dark even during the day; must be because of the poor picture quality. There...

July 20, 2020 As a teenager  All I needed was  A pocketful of cash  To make my dream come true  To see a man in person  Whose only words I knew  Towering over the crowd  Amid cheers and applause  More than sometimes  Screaming in angst  He was – still is  The voice in my head  For when I open my eyes  The room is empty  There is no crowd  Nobody to applaud  The teenage dream is lost  As he is long gone  But, why dismay  Life ends, ends the disarray  I close my eyes  Words pour out  And for a brief moment  He and I are one and the same  July 20, 2019 Another year and another day have gone by. I am alone in my room, far away from family and friends; as if that had ever comforted me. I pore over the words scribbled before me. Random fragment of sentences, written haphazardly, they don’t make sense. I had jotted it down last year but couldn’t produce something meaningful ...

A few days have passed since the new session started. And unlike most of the Std. (III) students, I haven’t paid the school fee. That’s why, when the school accountant steps into the classroom, I know he is here for me. “What about you,” he asks me, stopping by the front row. “Tomorrow,” I reply. He stands there for a while as if assessing the accountability of my words. I maintain a straight expression, while he scribbles something in his notebook then moves on to the next row.  “Why did you lie to him,” whispers Pragya, sitting next to me, once the accountant is out of earshot. “You are not going to be here tomorrow.” “But he doesn’t have to know that,” I whisper back. I am filled with a sense of accomplishment having successfully duped the accountant and at the same time, saved my father some money; after all, he is going to need it elsewhere. “Tell me something,” she says after a while. “Do you really want to go?” Do I? I turn around to look at my friends. Abhinav is sitting tw...

Time after time, the waves splash against the tetrapods, down below my dangling feet, not with force but out of a sense of duty. Along with the waves, the sea sends gusts of cool breeze, pleasant and comforting despite the prevalent humidity; the reason why people have thronged this place. I must be sitting somewhere near the mid-point of the pincer shaped sea-front which stretches out in either direction, bursting with luminescence pouring out of hundreds of streetlights. In contrast, the sea is darker. Still, I can spot a few ships far out, looming near the horizon. “You know what my greatest fear is,” I hear my friend say, sitting beside me. Unlike him, I can distinguish between a regular question and a rhetoric one. Therefore, I don’t give a reply straightaway. I let him complete his thought. “I fear that one day I would realise that I am dumb.” Now, I have to jump in. “Didn’t we already discuss this in college,” I start. “We judge others, how everyone else is a fool. Who k...

I lay on the floor which is still a little warm in spite of having sprinkled water on the floor in the evening. My eyes survey the sky, riddled with a thousand stars. And a crescent moon, under whose light, I can see the silhouette of the distant hill. I can make out the outline of the temple, situated on top of it. During night-time, whenever there’s a power cut, people rush to take a look at the hill. If there’s no light shining from the temple, then it’s alright, nothing can be done; otherwise, the problem is local – either a faulty circuit board or a disconnected wire from the electric pole – and can be fixed. I see no light coming from the temple. The power must have gone out again. A pleasant breeze brings me the smell of the cooking going on downstairs. It’s summertime and the heat becomes unbearable in the absence of electricity. As soon as dinner is prepared, everyone else joins me on the roof. Ma is serving when a sudden gust of wind blows out the lantern. “Oh, I forgot...

Snip-snip, clip-clip Despite its monotonicity, the sound has a certain ring to it. If I concentrate a bit harder, it almost sounds like a well-placed tune. Or maybe I have been listening to it for too long. Nevertheless, the sound has a sense of power because it remains upbeat in spite of the consistent murmur. Then it pauses. A brief silence follows. The boy at the start of the line scuttles to the most demanded chair in the room, to fill the momentous vacancy. A sense of relief is evident on his face. Following this, a wave ripples throughout the line. Everyone takes a few steps ahead and then comes to a stop. Another down, three more to go , I count. The snapping of scissors resumes. The murmur follows suit. My legs ache. I had jogged all the way to the barbershop, after taking a hasty lunch. There, to my dismay, a long queue was already in place. Patiently, I stood at the end. Awaiting my turn, I had spent the past hours shifting my weight from one leg to other, taking se...