Monday 10 April 2017

The Brief Tale Of Madan Mistry (Part 1 of 2)

He came to visit us not that often but mostly without any notice and on most occasions, uninvited. His presence always felt like that of any other family member around you. He would come mostly to uncle's ( who lived  just next door) for business and would often come into our house without knocking, shouting, "Raja re! Ki kori asa?" (Hey Raja, what's up?).

Madan Dai, as we dearly called him was a Bengali carpenter. He hailed from West Bengal, from the Koch Bihar region if i am not wrong. He first visited Assam somewhere in the 80's when he was just a little kid, with his dad who leaded an woodcutters' team. My grandpa hired them mostly and so a family like bond was created between them and us. Time passed and they left, but Madan Dai stayed and learned carpentry, a bit from here, a bit from there and became quite a good one in his job. Then one day after my parents' marriage, he reappeared. He was so unrecognizable, as dad told me and yet he remebered my family. He then began to live on rent in one of our rooms in a permanent sort of way. He mostly did wedding contracts, furniture and accessories and took household orders too. I remeber him since I have known a man is a man, a cow is a cow and you should always cry for your mom to take you to pee.
 Madan dai was a constant humour. A die hard cricket fan that he was, he also built me my first cricket bat, a good one made from Hilikha wood. I remember it lasted for a pretty long time until it landed on its destiny - the pond like pit at the back of our home where all the garbage was dumped. He never allowed himself to refrain from reading a monthly magazine and if I correctly remember, it was called 'Sising Faak' or something that sounded identical and it mostly cracked jokes on the then Assamese politicians and some day-to-day comedic situations and everytime he came across a punchline he would jump abruptly from the chair as if springs were tied to his feet and after a wholesome laughter he would narrate the same to dad or mom or whoever was in his vicinity. I remeber exactly the way he used to do that and even now when we talk about him, we donot fail to have a good laugh at it.

He was a good storyteller too and a radio fanatic and this habit that I too acquired from him is still pristine. The nostalgic remains of some of his radios were still lying around in the backyard untill dad cleared them off about a year ago.

 When I was about 9, he left and started living somewhere else. But he never failed to visit us on the many festivals and other occasions and his departure would often leave me in profound joy not only because the noise would be gone with him, but also 'cause of the ₹10 note he left in my hands.

He always had a bad timing. That day too I was only teaching my little brother some trigonometry when the frontyard echoed with his so familiar noisy voice. Mom was brooming the same room we were sitting in and she threw a 'we are doomed' sort of look at me, because she knew very well he wasn't going to leave early and my brother had his exam a day after. But he was a storm you wouldn't dare to stop. He came in, as usual without knocking and greeted mom and without even her asking him, he began describing where he had been, how he has been and where he was coming from at the moment. He was carrying an enormous bag  with him and in that bag I saw two enormous plastic containers filled with a dark fluid.
(To be continued...)
Raj Kishore Gogoi 

Thursday 6 April 2017

Tips to become an Indian Mantriji

The only good thing about democracy is that it gives people the wisdom that you can never really know a person by his appearance. Democracy turns ‘personally right’ seeming decisions into frustrating 'national errors' (that's what i call the ministers) and all you are left to do now is find the needle (good work) in the haystack (corruption and autocracy). Every passing election makes people think where it went wrong, were they too expecting? The reason why they don't allow you to disclose whom you've voted might be that you don’t die of frustration and  shame on your own selection. Democracy is a phenomenon that turns the country into a brothel and the opposition into a shameless, big eyed and foul mouthed and toothless hypocrite. Democracy depends upon the fact that people know but they don’t remember.
To make it more vivid, a man asks another, “Do you know how I can be a minister?"
The second man asks, “Where?"
"India." - replies the first one.
"That shouldn’t be hard. There are numerous ways. For instance you can team up with an old coward who fled from the battlefield and sit fasting on a public ground. There are also the harder ways of murder and rape but you know with dedication nothing is impossible. The easiest one in my opinion is to get rid of your brain so that it becomes easy for you to make fool of yourself everywhere you go with your caravan. There is another hard but interesting way - for that you've to become an actor, win hearts with your artificiality and comtunue the same after you become a minister and if you are a rich one of the kind, you can also donate 0.00001 % of your net worth to the flood victims of a state you had no idea existed before you saw it in the news. I call it a harder way because after you become one it really becomes hard to manage time between your shooting schedules and parliament sessions. You will also be needing the divine art of blaming and throwing mud other parties and the great vision of observing a hidden meaning in everything your rivals say. The foul mouth and half brainer comments are a compulsory qualification for all the above categories. You become any one of these and the parties will come and offer you a candidature for election and a monstrous marigold garland with their own hands. The winning part is even easier. All you have to do is distribute promises, fried chicken and liquor.
     The next step after your victory is creating a legacy. Now, you can do it in two ways, either do some good in your constituency or rope in your family members into politics. Always remember, no force in this universe can defeat you if your family stands with you, provided that they are ministers too or at least be gazetted officers, with a false degree of course. I am not saying this, it's Indian philosophy and written with golden words in a doctorine we dearly call Bollywood. And never fail to give the public a circus if you fail to give them bread, an advice the Romans left for their worthless successors. And thus, you become an ideal Indian minister.”

My dad once told me, " Son, this country shall be brought back to its old glory only by bachelors." At first I thought that was a joke but I realised there was a bigger philosophy behind. Married men and women tend to be more corrupt than the bachelor ministers, because you know how wives are, not to speak of their demands and shopping and the ever increasing prices, it is reasonable for them to hide away a penny or two. And the many donation hungry NGOs and bodies, a  minister even uploaded an open letter on social media once, disclosing that they ARE not corrupt but situations FORCE them to be. O my fellow Indians, you are so good at axing your own feet.

#trailofatale

Identity

Raj Kishore Gogoi

“Is it reasonable in any way to waste your classes like this? It might not be important but at least it will do you more good than playing games on that stupid play station. I know you are not going to do any studying today, it’s just an excuse for your laziness.”
Robin had decided to skip school today. He wasn't before, but then he remembered some assignments he had to do. Earlier in the morning, his mother had told him to deposit some money at the bank while returning, but he was just not in the mood for school today. But mother won’t give up. She kept on trying every means to get his ass out of home and the bank business too was important. Robin could understand her tactics, so he pretended to ignore her quietly and began helping his father in the backyard in stacking away some wooden planks.
“Good morning Chetia Da.” It was Bogai on the wicket-gate. He was a wage labourer at Robin’s dad, Mr. Chetia’s steel workshop. Mr. Chetia has just recovered after he injured his waist, slipping over a wet floor a week ago. Most of the pain is gone now but the doctor has forbidden hard work for at least a month.
“What’s the matter Bogai?” Mr. Chetia inquired.
“Pradeep Da is calling for you. He is going to Jorhat”
“Bustards...” Mr. Chetia murmured. “You go and unpack the new arrivals, and tell Pradeep I’ll be there after breakfast.”
Pradeep was Mr. Chetia’s business partner and came from the Marwari community. He looked after the accounts and dealings while Mr. Chetia looked over the labourers. The moment Bogai was gone, Mrs. Chetia called them in for breakfast.
“Who was that?”
“It was Bogai. I have to be at the shop.”
“Can’t Pradeep handle the shop by himself for a single day? Doesn’t he know about your accident?”
“He is going to Jorhat to visit a cousin admitted at Sanjeevani. Don't talk about these things to me now”
  “Why shouldn’t I? Don’t you look after everything all by yourself when he goes attending the marriages and Pujas and sick people all around the country? Now can't you stay at home even at your doctor's advice?” Mrs. Chetia was fuming.
It was true. While Mr. Chetia never missed work except on cases of severe ill health, Pradeep remained absent for almost half of the month. Not that he was skipping his accounting works, but his frequent leaves and travels were not at all digestible for both Mrs. Chetia and Robin. But Mr. Chetia always kept calm whenever his wife brought up this topic and both Mrs Chetia and Robin wondered why.
Robin felt, this is the moment and asked him directly, “Why dad? Why do you always dump away this topic? What is the reason that you never protest before Pradeep Uncle about it?”
Mr. Chetia kept eating quietly for some time and said,
“The reason is that, Pradeep, he can survive even without the shop. His father has left him with enough property to spend for this lifetime. Along with that, his accounting and management skills can easily get him a job in any one of the many firms in the state. Only about two months ago he told me that the owner of steel mill himself asked him if he would look over the management. He even offered him a 3 BHK flat at Guwahati, not to mention the salary. I call it good luck that Pradeep hates working under someone; otherwise we would have lost everything.”
“Then he’d better leave, you do all the work alone, almost all the time. What more harm is it going to cause if he leaves the partnership completely?” said Robin.
“There are many things, son. Let me explain it to you. Do you know Nipen? Who owns the workshop a Paban Nagar?”
“Yes I know him, his workshop barely has a customer and remains shuttered all the time.”
“That’s the point! Do you know why?”
“Why dad?”
“You won’t believe me.” Mr. Chetia replied with a smile.
He resumed his eating quietly and after a few seconds spoke again.
“Okay, now answer me this. There are so many shops here and an appreciable number of customers too, then why are the shops owned by the local Assamese guys so quiet, while those owned by Amit Agarwalla and Suresh Tiwari are the busiest?”
Robin tried hard to think of a possible reason.
“I’ll tell you why. You know Amit and Suresh, they both aren’t locals. They were born here but Suresh’s father was only a blanket maker who used to come from Motihari every year for the winter and later settled down opening a grocery here; and Amit’s grandfather came here as a carpenter in the 40’s. So you can’t certify them as pure locals. And that’s a blessing for them. Our Assamese community is gifted with an amazing mentality. We can never bear our neighbours get richer than us and that’s the reason our people fall. Now that I have Pradeep with me, it’s not because of me that the customers come in to do business with us. My success will be impossible for them to bear and that’s also the reason Nipen’s shop is remains closed for half the year. And if Pradeep wasn't there I would've ended up the same as him. Pradeep's identity itself is a symbol of trust for our customers because the Assamese trust strangers more than they do trust their own brothers. And further more, Pradeep's identity widens our market. Tell me, who will buy products from an Assamese, the people that distrusts  and envies their own?"
Mr. Chetia finished his meal, took out the car and drove away. Robin stared untill he disappeared around the corner.


Tuesday 4 April 2017

In Love With A Fragrance Ep. 2

(Episode 2)
The phone beeped. The notification bar displayed a new message. He swiped open the phone and clicked on the messenger app.
"You there?" The message read.
"Yeah, what's up?" He replied.
"Nothing now. Sitting idle after dinner."
A brief pause and one more text - "I miss you."
"I miss you too."
"What was for dinner tonight?" ...

        Jessie and Fred met for the first time at Winston Junior, where Grandpa admitted him after he'd moved after his parents' demise. He was only 14 then.
          Jessie was a piece of heaven sent to earth. She was like one of those wild flowers that soothes your eyes the moment you see them, blooming in the middle of the grass, so different yet the harmony, it just makes you fall in love. Just one week of being around her for 5 hours a day was all it needed. A single look at her kept all of his sorrows, his pain and sobs of misfortune at bay. Like she'd been sent for the very purpose. Oh! how he wished he had her near him, on whose shoulders he could burst out of his suffocations. How he wished he could escape the pityful gazes of his classmates, confused if they should come and talk to him or leave him alone 'cause he might get hurt. And Jessie, her heart too pained at his loneliness and Fred always wished she would walk up to him and talk to him. When he realized, it actually should be the other way round, he wished he had that courage. Just calling each other, for the first time was proving to be too Herculian. All he could do now was to watch the other boys getting close to her and punching their jaws off in the arenas of his imagination. It was unbearable for him and maybe for God too because what happened next was a miracle for him.

(To be continued)

© Raj Kishore Gogoi 2017 (IPR)

In Love With A Fragrance Ep. 1

(Episode 1)

The evening sky that was glowing in a crimson hue suddenly turned darker. The growing noise of the wind warned of a stormy night ahead. A gust slinked in and swept away the assignment sheets from his table, scattering  them all over the place. Irritated, he got up from the chair to close the window. In the distance he saw waves rising and mumbled a short prayer. As he started collecting the papers, he wondered why the sea too became wild everytime something tormented him. He always felt the existence of a cosmic connection between the two but never bothered to think any deeper. It was half past 6 already and Grandpa hadn't yet returned from his walk to the pier. He felt worried. Suddenly there was a knock on the door. It was Grandpa himself. 
"What's up Fred?"
"I was busy doing some homework. How was your walk?"
"I was only halfway down when the cop slowed his car and told me to stay in. They are telling on the radio too about a storm coming this way but I don't think there's gonna be any, it's just a sad weather. The shops had started to close down already."

Fred lived with his Grandpa in a tiny cottage on a little hill near the beach. There were coconut trees all around the house with hammocks hanging from them and a little shack where they cooked shrimps every weekend. Fred's parents passed away in a tragic car accident when he was still a child and he has been living with his Grandpa since.

By the time they had dinner, the weather was calmed again. Fred marvelled quietly at his Grandpa's forecast. After all, Grandpa had been living by the sea since he was born, so he could tell everything about its mood and tantrums with so easiness.
(To be continued)

(Precap:
Fred was lying in his bed when his phone beeped.)

Raj Kishore Gogoi
#trailofatale

Monday 3 April 2017

KABUTAR HAVELI

"Pigeons?" He asked in an excited tone.
"Yes, in thousands, dwelling in the cracks of dry wells scattered all over the region." I said.
"Hmm...but that mustn't be a common sighting there. Who would possibly hunt around pigeons in such a vegetarian atmosphere, that too in all the blazing desert heat." - he said.
"And you drop one little stone into one of such wells and there will be surprised pigeons all over the sky coming out of it, like those bats you see storming out of caves in a spooky movie."
"Man what a score it would be if someone smuggles them to over here." - he said.

There was a brief silence. The fire was burning at its full, the light reflected in the whisky. The night too was growing deep and the only noise were the leaves rustling and the trucks passing by, honking.

At last it was he who spoke.
"Have you met my uncle Suresh? Well, I remember a story he told me once, that he heard the last time he visited Rajasthan."
"What's that?"
"An old woman. Her skin was like those blocks of earth you see in a drought infested field. She lived in a humongous Haveli and the only creatures residing there beside herself were pigeons. On the terrace, on the balconies, on the floor; only pigeons everywhere. People say, it was the curse of an angry hermit."
"Do you know the story?" I was curious.
"Yes I do, Suresh uncle told me, that family was an unhappy one. The mother, her son and his wife lived together and the old lady had almost given up all hopes for a grandchild, when suddenly this hermit stopped by her haveli. The hermit blessed the couple and in not less than a year did the house echoed the giggles of a little child." - he paused.
"Then?"
"The hermit returned. The family had promised him a gift if his blessing came true. But when they saw the hermit they refused and ordered him to leave and get lost. The hermit was so obstinate and headstrong, he sat in protest on their doorstep. They say, he sat there for one whole week when at last tired of his tantrums, the old lady called a local band of goons and chased him away. The people say, when the hermit left, he waved his hand in a strange gesture and cursed, that this house will be inhabited by nothing but pigeons from this day."
"Then?"
"Few months later, the newborn child died of jaundice
. Severly hurt at the incident, the wife passed away too. The husband was killed in a road accident a year later. The mother is all left of the family now, a soul trapped in a cage of skeletons. That house has been called Kabutar Haveli, 'The Pigeon Manson' since."
On a tree nearby, I heard a pigeon's mournful cooing. A shiver ran down my spine.

Raj Kishore Gogoi
#trailofatale

The Tragic Irony

Raj Kishore Gogoi

"No one but the Ancient of Days
Knows of my tragic irony,
For He is the sole audience of my plays,
From when the sun first smiled upon me,
To the day I shall weep in  mortal agony.

He laughs at my selfishness
I camouflage with innocent eyes;
He laughs at my greed,
When I labour to bury my truths.

'cause He is the Ancient of Days
He understands the tragic irony of my plays,
But I wonder if He cries too
Seeing me weep in utter solitude,
An actor, waiting for the script and scene."


That humans posses a demonic instinct, like every living entity is an absolute fact. This instinct has been gifted to us by God himself so we survive.  This special gift of God remains invisible, veiled and weakened by the curtains of education and shakles etiquette and we almost forget all about it being there in us, but all the more we are sure of its existance. With the passage of time and evolution, these survival instincts evolved too, into killing, robbing, theft, and warfare and into its more civilised versions of conning and deceivery. No matter with what color we try to keep it concealed, it always finds a way to a shine even brighter. We often try to label it as 'the evil' in us which is an absolute shame on our part in accepting the truth of a virtue because of which our own species stands today.

I knew an author who was selling stories of his own experiences for fiction for he had ran out of ideas. I knew a student who eloquently played the part of an attentive pupil, nodding his head with acute perfection for he knew the teacher was going to question only the backbencher. We see hypocrite politicians everyday and friends who promised to die for each other but ended up in betrayal instead are a common story.

Instances are numerous and proofs many but the reason behind is sole. The evil in us. The darker alter ego. We cannot hide it, removing is out of the question. It's just an ugly truth, from which we keep running away, calling ourselves good, consoling the dark spirits within.

Raj Kishore Gogoi
#trailofatale

Venomously Sweet

Raj Kishore Gogoi

"He saw a snake whispering in the ears of its victim, seducing him before the kill."


"বিশ্বাস কৰা নাছিলোঁ, দেখিলো, শুনিলোঁ, ধাৰণাটো ভুল আছিল বুলি সৈমান হ'লো। সান্তনা লভিবলৈ নতুন নতুন উপায়ৰ সন্ধান আৰম্ভ কৰিলোঁ। কুৎসিতৰ মাজত সুন্দৰে শোভা বিলাব? কি বাজে কথা। বৰং কুৎসিত আৰু সুন্দৰৰ সংমিশ্ৰণ হৈ এটা কিম্ভূত কিমাকাৰ ৰূপ ধাৰণ কৰিব।

কাঁইটৰ মাজৰ গোলাপ অথবা বোকাৰ মাজৰ পদুমৰ কথা নক'বা মোক প্ৰিয়া।
ফুলৰ লগত কোনোদিনে তুলনা কৰা নাছিলোঁ তোমাক।"

Once upon a time, there was a wall and there were they. He lived in the dark country where everything goes wrong every time and she on the brighter land. One day, the wall crumbled and they crossed paths. Their eyes met and stayed so for a while. A strange, sweet quake followed,  making their bright innocent hearts shiver, a little.

Time went on. Views were quietly burgled, bouquets of smiles were exchanged. They felt like they were reborn and he rejoiced in the new meaning of his life which in no way could he realise was false. But it was. The air was wild, the summer, sweet. They awaited an excuse for their hearts to, reveal the words they couldn't bear to keep any longer. Oh! How good was time, until it played its cards.

They had to go away, which was hilariously common to happen in such stories, but this, it promised to come back again. A separation that will reward them in the course of time of which they had nothing more but a vague intuition.

"Do you miss me?" - she would ask.
"More than the winter earth longs for the summer sun." - he would reply, honest to his last metaphor.

Time quietly flew on. Friends were forgotten, new ones made in turn, old ideas turned 'stupid', new ones were learnt. Things that felt so good didn't feel good anymore. Secrets, started to be kept and began to be buried untold. Time played its tricks it had kept hidden in his sleeves this long so perfectly. The deceitful vines of misunderstanding crept through the very roots on which they stood and started eating all the brightness away. There was too much pain and a very little hope. That cruel time, it even ate away the  leftovers. He lost himself and wondered if she did too. But, she never did. She lived on the brighter side, remember? Where nothing goes wrong, where the deepest cuts heal at the wink of an eye?

When he stood up eventually, he was surprised! He couldn't feel anything anymore. He wondered was it all a dream? An illusion that  convinced him to believe it was real? He closed his eyes.

He saw a snake whispering in his ears, tantalizing its victim before tearing him apart.

Raj Kishore Gogoi
#trailofatale

A Curtailed Quest

I searched for those frail fingers That painted you down; Nature drew a veil over herself, The gleam of the sun diminished by a shade...