The Magnificent out of the Mundane

Well shud that be the name of this jotting down. The 13 day long trip is over. It is so ironical that 13 the number forms such a huge part of my life.

The trip back home was momentous, the kinds one shud remember for a lifetime. The flight detour, the neck sprain, the train cancellations at howrah, waiting for the right one, getting up on the local to durgapur finally reaching 'home sweet home' on a day which we bengalis call the oshtomi, but any outsider would term as a day of utter chaos in the daily routine of life.

The green rice fields that i crossed on the way from burdwan to durgapur, all had a feeling of being so close to me, so known to me, that nothing seemed to have changed an iota in the returning back.

Nothing perhaps ever changes at one's home though to an unbiased observer it perhaps does.

Pujos were not exceptional. The rants from home to get married, more so from dear mother has risen. How can i make her understand everything of myself. And a result being me remaining silent, she saying i have become so reserved n stuff.

The late night jaunts to the pandals were good, but i enjoyed best the ride to asansol driving the car. The highway be it from durgapur to asansol or from texas to arizona has i guess the same feel, the same melody of always being on the move.

On one of the weekdays i visited Joka the institute from which i did my so called postgraduation degree. THings hadnt changed there too, faced had, the same profs still teach, i was left wondering if this is what i am aiming at doing, where from will i usher in the new on each and every day of life.

Back to Durgapur then, trying to keep mom darling's every little urging within the possible limits. Then it was time to come back again to Cal, to board the flight. Oh yes my home, my town doesnt have an airlifting facility, so obviously the nearest metro gets the credit.

Yesterday night before coming back i visited Belur. The same old house where a large part of my childhood in holidays used to be spent. The house which once was a vibrant gathering of my grandfathers n grandmothers now housed by their remnant of memories books, old clothes, torn tube lights and rags, earthen pots and two souls residing still. My youngest grandpa and my eldest grandma.

Enroute to the house as i took a rickshaw, i managed to enjoy the cherished view of a simple young bengali couple, walking back, perhaps from the tuitions of the evenings as they strive to complete their education. Oh what an effort their was to harness the magnificent in their most mundane of togetherness...and Also this leading on to nothing but a solitary existence like Didibhai baa chotodadu, at the end of life.

The child is back back from the glory of home, the belongingness of the rice fields, the rights of ownership of every small nook and corners of the town where he had grown up to an alien world, where his existence is but a matter of routine and nothing more.

What did i realise in all this! Did i imbibe anything in particular.

I cant talk about realisations but surely can walk you through some of the moments i will savour in this trip.

- The journey back, the air travel, the road travel, the travel over the hooghly to howrah station, it was all that i have left behind to embark on this life.

- The desperate tears that came out early morn as i left house early morning to catch the train to calcutta. I dont know, the last time i cried like that was seven years back when i left home for roorkee. Is this something for a move ahead, the sign of a further longer time till i can ever get back to my 'Own Corner' in this world.

- The sitting with bhatta dear, at the babughat ferryghat, over an abandoned steamer, decked in rusted iron and all other by products of industrialisation, as we two watched the sun set, the skies getting ruddier, the river flowing, the breeze serenading us on our cheeks as we crossed over to the other side of the hooghly. The old and the new Howrah Bridge were watching us, like the doormen in front of a house who know of everything thats going on inside but never utter a word of opinion about the same. How stolid isnt it!

- Finally, the early morning cal ride today as i came to the airport. the air jerky, kalipujo time setting in, the people still the same, they happy loitering around in their most mundane existence...

And me now back to eke out something more magnificent out of the mundane lives that we all live here.