i want to pack up the night and take it with me… wrapped in its folds are stars and stories from afar afar and farther away, even farther than that, where where something of me lives, i’ve known of it long known? no, perhaps not that. knowing is so reduced lit with shining bright light, harsh and stentorian insistent, unrelenting, blinded by its own glory there’s the night, dark and darker still, calling me to those stars, those stories, and…
the sky is always there, beyond my computer. some instinct of mine, first thing in the morning straight after i wake up and make my way to the day, i come here to my corner and lift the latch of the window, push the frosted glass pane slightly, it swings back. and the sky is there. a narrow triangle of it, lacework of leaves and branches across, but still. along with the sounds of cars from the road and flyover…
i haven’t walked on grass in years. why do my toes wiggle and crush up as i type this? as though anticipating something delightful? memory of dew-wet bright green blades between my toes; something pokes, a bed of green and earth yields, my foot sinks into its springy comfort; and lets go, lifts up. the next step. but before that, a rush of breeze on the wet sole of my foot where a few strands of grass and little specks…
the fan fell on pishima’s head on monday. everyone remembered it was a monday because shome was on a fast. pishima always made fresh shondesh for shome with cottage cheese and a little sugar when he fasted. she flavoured the shondesh with lemon juice sometimes, or plain new date jaggery if it was winter. sometimes she added a segment or two of orange, after carefully removing the skin, pith, and seeds, of course. when the weather got warm, she sprinkled…
don’t drag me down to your controversy lift your eyes toward the sky within you from here, stand by me and sense your dream your paradise, your most exalted soul what’s beauty if it won’t even take you there do you see the evening light on the ripples? there, before you beyond the fastidiously carved quiet balustrade of noontime sun white i know, its brightness is somewhat dimmed, tinged with ochre and time, and conversations with the river…
it’s not possible to think of history while thinking of chops. especially mutton chops. and yet, i tried. one may not think that’s an achievement… and this would only be because one hadn’t had a mutton chop, the way bengalis make it. chop, to a bengali, is not a cut of meat. it’s a beatific smile inducing joyful experience that involves getting lost in another world while recalling exactly how mother or grandmother or boro ma or younger kakima, or…
she wasn’t very tall, had a slight figure, hair in a bun, a pleasant expression, nothing remarkable really, yet the two of us were staring at her riveted. next thing i remember, we’d waylaid her and started an animated conversation. i looked at the photograph recalling things. it was the winter of 1980, i think. no internet, no google, no photoshop; i have to rely on good old memory. nice feeling. in fact, when i found the photograph, and grinned…
i won’t start singing but hoisting that umbrella over my head and dashing out onto the glittering rain lashed zebra crossing i did feel like mary poppins the other day. remember ms poppins? she who sits on a cloud and pulls lamp stands out of her carpetbag? and sings a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine…? and flies off with you to who knows where? whenever i think umbrella, i see her sitting on a cloud, powdering her nose, then…
i was sitting in front of my computer, working and completely absorbed, when it came out of nowhere and spooked me. i suddenly had to make fish kochuri. i don’t know how to make these delicious pastries with fish stuffed in it. this was a fiend though that was hellbent on scaring me into submission. think the only time i’ve had fish kochuri or maachher kochuri, as we call it in bengali, was almost ten years ago. maybe more. it…
there was no facebook in my grandmother’s time. when she made batches of a hundred pantuas, no one quickly went and took pictures on their iphone and posted it on fb. there was no iphone too then. pantua, in case you’ve never had of it, is this delightful bengali mishti or sweet. it’s a lot like gulab jamun, but it isn’t that ubiquitous dessert. pantua is made mainly of chhana or cottage cheese, i.e. paneer… with a bit of khoya…