I cancelled the paper today. The paperboy wondered for a while, then rigorously scratched my name off the list as if rewiring his route not to leave the four-rupee English daily at my doorstep. With the paper, I parted with my awareness of dates. A quick glance of the top, ignoring all advertisements in the periphery and I would know if the cabs are going to be surge-priced for the day.
There was something today. I could hear my mother part with an amount of money that was considered obscene by my father. Regardless, the unsung matriarchy in the typical Bengali household was not a new sight. She’d been a bit sick for the past few days, much to the amusement of my physician, who was more fascinated by her internet research than years of medical expertise. But today, she felt a need to be better.
The afternoon almost deceives you into thinking that ordinary days turn into ordinary nights. I’m not of the time when the postmaster used to sort through piles of letters to be sent out on foot by nightfall. Now, he is relieved for the week, tasked with gathering the well-meant letters of others and dropping them into the hands of every known and unknown passerby that he fancies. All of us fundamentally the same, resisting change by embracing it.
That one room on the third floor was occupied with boxes; the tenants had meticulously written the contents of each box beside their collective names. I sat upon one, sulking in the November evening at the end of the corridor. It wasn’t far, but it seemed more like a mural than an actual scene. The ends of a coconut palm, disappearing at the edges didn’t seem as rushed and sudden as they usually do. Of all the great labours, I wonder if they would’ve believed his suffering if he had lost nothing at all.
I must commend their choice of wallpaper. The neighbours seemed to enjoy it through the closed doors, bragging about the fact that their footprints to heaven came out better than the ones on the floor below. This season always comes with winds that are pleasant to the eyes; so much so that every little sight takes a while longer on the thumb, yet only able to render a neon gleam in this dense cloud of melancholia.
Mine must be here, somewhere inside these boxes between fragile glassware and clothes that don’t fit anymore. I wish I’d lose some of them, maybe in the corner of a moving truck stuck in traffic or the baggage shelf of a local train for the lack of any attention. A loss that would not only take the contents with it but the lingering labels that people make for them; a middle school exercise to get over your fear of monsters, predominantly living.
The taste of sweetness inevitably turns sour if not washed immediately. And then the question arrives that if you are not equipped to answer strong grips with even stronger ones, is it sinful enough to take away your rights to pray. Because I still do pray, in the traditional posture with a strange quiet. The quiet where I’m in pristine of health, hiding scary coughs from prying eyes; the quiet where I know a bit more than the day before; the quiet where that one lass from a painter’s dream leaves love and the incessant quiet that follows after, of wishes ungranted.
If you still remember, I cancelled the paper today. They print laughter and sadness and wrap a convenient narrative in these drowning explosions. The warmth in their eyes almost conspires with the cold night to throw a damp blanket upon these beacons of light. I envy those rats that found their way out of these tunnels and turned on their backs caught a glimpse of the spreading boughs of a firework. Because I am one that was destined to die inside this box.
©sagnik_sarma
There was something today. I could hear my mother part with an amount of money that was considered obscene by my father. Regardless, the unsung matriarchy in the typical Bengali household was not a new sight. She’d been a bit sick for the past few days, much to the amusement of my physician, who was more fascinated by her internet research than years of medical expertise. But today, she felt a need to be better.
The afternoon almost deceives you into thinking that ordinary days turn into ordinary nights. I’m not of the time when the postmaster used to sort through piles of letters to be sent out on foot by nightfall. Now, he is relieved for the week, tasked with gathering the well-meant letters of others and dropping them into the hands of every known and unknown passerby that he fancies. All of us fundamentally the same, resisting change by embracing it.
That one room on the third floor was occupied with boxes; the tenants had meticulously written the contents of each box beside their collective names. I sat upon one, sulking in the November evening at the end of the corridor. It wasn’t far, but it seemed more like a mural than an actual scene. The ends of a coconut palm, disappearing at the edges didn’t seem as rushed and sudden as they usually do. Of all the great labours, I wonder if they would’ve believed his suffering if he had lost nothing at all.
I must commend their choice of wallpaper. The neighbours seemed to enjoy it through the closed doors, bragging about the fact that their footprints to heaven came out better than the ones on the floor below. This season always comes with winds that are pleasant to the eyes; so much so that every little sight takes a while longer on the thumb, yet only able to render a neon gleam in this dense cloud of melancholia.
Mine must be here, somewhere inside these boxes between fragile glassware and clothes that don’t fit anymore. I wish I’d lose some of them, maybe in the corner of a moving truck stuck in traffic or the baggage shelf of a local train for the lack of any attention. A loss that would not only take the contents with it but the lingering labels that people make for them; a middle school exercise to get over your fear of monsters, predominantly living.
The taste of sweetness inevitably turns sour if not washed immediately. And then the question arrives that if you are not equipped to answer strong grips with even stronger ones, is it sinful enough to take away your rights to pray. Because I still do pray, in the traditional posture with a strange quiet. The quiet where I’m in pristine of health, hiding scary coughs from prying eyes; the quiet where I know a bit more than the day before; the quiet where that one lass from a painter’s dream leaves love and the incessant quiet that follows after, of wishes ungranted.
If you still remember, I cancelled the paper today. They print laughter and sadness and wrap a convenient narrative in these drowning explosions. The warmth in their eyes almost conspires with the cold night to throw a damp blanket upon these beacons of light. I envy those rats that found their way out of these tunnels and turned on their backs caught a glimpse of the spreading boughs of a firework. Because I am one that was destined to die inside this box.
©sagnik_sarma
Comments
Post a Comment