HAVE YOU EVER TALKED TO THE WIND ?

HAVE YOU EVER TALKED TO THE WIND ?

While driving along the toll-bridge
or on a highway bike-ride,
Have you ever talked to the wind ?

The wind is in love with you ….
She gushes at you with joy
just to play with your hair …

She breaks into so many pieces
just to shower you with a thousand kisses
She rushes from your left to your right ,
take a turn from behind your neck ,
and whispers your name in your ears a million times….

She moves away , pauses
and rushes back to touch you again……
…. and again……..

Have you ever talked to the wind ????

A SPACE OF MY OWN

Growing up is not easy… especially not with the complexities of living with an extended family, interacting with them 24 hours a day and yet craving for some personal space.During my teens, I remember this great desire for a pad of my own… where I could hibernate and escape from everything and everyone to be with my own self. Those days I was anything but this gregarious extrovert which I am now. Like all teens, I used to be extremely shy to confront people. And I could give anything at my possible capacity to anyone who would save me from this huge punishment of ‘socializing’ with so-called ‘guests’.It was easier said than done. For one, my ma never used to leave me alone. She would want me to come out, meet the guests and talk to them… talk sense, that is, while she prepared tea and eatables. Second, I had to share a room with my sister younger to me. So, most of the times when I headed for the room for some private moments, she would follow me straight into the room and try to protect her secret possessions or ‘treasures’ like crayons, stickers, stamps or comic books from my reach. At other times, she would blabber what prank her best friend played on the teacher they all hated or ask me if I liked that cute boy who has recently moved into our neighborhood, because she liked him too.Or worse still, compete with me in reading out our respective lessons aloud to insist that she is the better reader amongst the two of us. The result? We would both get tired and fall asleep before dinner at our reading tables and that made my ma lose her temper real bad. Fortunately, my dad was the only person who did not bother, as he was hardly at home, due to the nature of his job.I finally got some solitude I craved for, when my sister packed off to a hostel when she got through in the veterinary college situated in our neighboring state of Meghalaya. And hurray ! I finally had our room entirely to myself. But that was not for long. Her place was quickly taken up by my youngest sister who was growing up fast and trying to take guidance and inspiration from me. But that time you don’t realize the importance of such moments which you don’t get ever again in life. That time I used to find it such a bother when my youngest sister asked me to help her solve a math problem or to help her draw a village scene for her summer project. And whenever my other sister returned from her hostel to spend the weekend at home, we three had to hole up in that one room, fighting like cats and dogs or chatting up like long-lost friends throughout the whole night, which would drive my ma crazy either ways.When I look back to those days now, I realize that the concept of personal space probably did not even exist then and maybe that is the reason I have such a strong bond with both my sisters even though all the three of us are so different in nature and so far from each other now.It was only after I came to Delhi some six years ago, I felt the dire need to have a place of my own. At first when I was working part-time to earn my expenses for the Fashion Designing Course I was doing, I needed to live at a minimum expense. So I had to share rooms with different girls… which varied from the strict-motherly kinds to the stingy living-on-your-expense-parasite kinds. Then again there was this hygienically challenged kinds to the quarrelsome kinds. Yet again, the over-educated lawyer kinds or the student-kleptomaniac kinds. And most of the times than not, I had a tough time adjusting and catering to their natures and needs. Then I decided to stay as a PG with a Punjabi family, but had a tough time explaining my odd late night habits and the never-ending line of friends visiting at all hours of the day due to the designing projects.Slowly, after I completed my course and got a job as an assistant designer in one of the leading export houses, with a decent pay-package, I felt the need to move out of the ‘Family’ with whom I accommodated as a PG and to take up a room on rent to live on my own. And that’s when I realized what it means to have a space of my own. I could actually burrow into my room to do what I liked doing at any time of the day. Most of the times, I would just sit and stare into space, perfecting the arts of (day) dreaming or doing nothing. It kept the world out of my hair and I finally had good sleep at night. I experienced pure ‘nirvana’ once I closed the door to the rest of the world. A room for my own self, which also stood for my freedom… freedom of thought and action. It was the only place where I could ‘maro a sutta’ without anyone else finding out. It gave me creative ideas to design, paint, read, or jot down my thoughts. I could play my own music, at the volume I pleased (at reasonable hours of the day or night). I could keep things the way I wanted to, dress the way I felt like and stick the kind of posters I loved to drool over (read—a shirtless wet-n-wild John Abraham—drool…drool !!). It was a precious place for concentrated study to clear the designing papers to get the diploma or prepare for the numerous interviews that followed.Measuring it from all the sides and angles, after all these years I feel, in today’s world we all are under tremendous pressure from both within and outside the family. The pressures of family, siblings, room-mates, bosses, peers or job-targets can be quite over-struggling and can even sometimes throw a person out of gear. So, I vote for a single solitary place for each individual which we all need not necessarily a room, but a little space we can call our own. A place to unwind… a place we can be with our own selves without any pretence… a place to find our own identity… a piece of peace on earth !

NOSTALGIC 'NAAMTI'

My earliest memories of NAAMTI---a small village, located in the outskirts of Sibsagar (a small town in Upper Assam)---were the regular annual trips with my parents, either during my summer or winter vacations. My dad hails from 'Naamti' and I simply love the place.

As a child, I remember those countless winter nights of story-hearing sessions upon my grandfather's lap, wrapped up inside his warm 'endi'-shawl, between his arms and upon his knees, rocking along with him in his armchair, and falling asleep in that same position at night after dinner, carried to bed carefully later on by dad, without waking me up from my land of sweet dreams. In the cold evenings of those winter days, I would sometimes sit with my paternal aunt by the fireplace in the 'Dheki-Ghar' (a room with the big wooden rice-grinder, to separate rice from their cover-skin to be used for cooking or to be powdered), or go chasing fireflies with her in the summer evenings. Away from the somewhat busy, hectic and mechanical life of Guwahati (where my parents have settled down), Naamti is the place, which always gives solace to my heart.

Like most of the small places, Naamti used to have frequent load shedding, especially at night, those days. But there you would find this a blessing in disguise, because at such times, we all used to sit in the long open verandah at the stairs, with 'Aita' (my grandmother, who used to stay there alone after grandfather's death and after my aunt's marriage), and chat with her, enjoying the cool summer breeze, or listening to the distant sound of hundreds of unknown insects.

What has fascinated me most right from my very childhood, are the numerous fireflies that appear like glittering diamonds, in the dark attire of the night, to go with the twinkling starry night-sky. The big pond there, in the front-yard, is deep and is a large house for a variety of fishes. The caretaker--'Jogesh' (who has been serving the family right from his childhood days and grew up with my dad and his four elder brothers, two younger sisters and four cousins, like a part of the same family), is an adept fisherman, and he never returns without a prized catch, whenever we wanted to have fish-curry cooked by 'aita' in the traditional assamese style. He also used to take us to the paddy fields during the harvest time in our winter vacations, to gather crops and also to our favorite harvest (bonfire) festival.

Jogesh taught us the pleasures of climbing mango & lychee trees, careful of the huge red-ants, and how to devour the ripe fruits there, up on the tree itself. He also trained us how to recognise the various trees, their names, their importance, uses and their rarity and demand. I remember the countless adventurous trips that we took with 'Jogesh', with bamboo-sticks in hand, to drive away snakes and the innumerable practical knowledge that we gathered during these trips. As for instance, which leaves to rub against a poisonous insect bite, which herb to use as a mosquito repellent, how to get rid of a leech that has stuck to your feet in the paddy fields, or how to call out to the wild birds.

Naamti is a place, which gives indefinable serenity. The vast paddy fields (green in summer and yellow-ochre in winter), the quiet front and backyard ponds, the gentle cows with their calves, the smart and naughty monkeys with their cute antics, the paddy store-houses, the outstretched mango and litchi groves, the exotic wild orchids, the backyard vegetable garden, the dense bamboo groves, the melodious harmony in the chirpings of cuckoo and brain-fever birds, etc, never cease to give a healing touch to any disturbed mind.

Life is beautiful there--very simple, fascinating and so welcoming! As the years roll on, I find my emotional bond with Naamti becoming stronger and stronger. Maybe it has something to do with psychological and emotional factors. Whatever the cause, I pray that Naamti retains its charm, natural beauty, hospitality and charisma forever and develops in the field of availability of power supply.

Though Aita is no more today, Jogesh still continues faithfully to take care of our ancestral property there, with his wife and kid. One day, when I get married and have kids, I will definitely want them and their kids and the forthcoming generations, to know what a hidden treasure of natural beauty and resources Naamti holds in store. And what a paradise on earth, actually looks like…