| Aapnara Bangaali |

Ajeeb Dastaan Hain Yeh,
kahaan shuru kahaan khatam,
Yeh manzilen hain kaunsi,
Naa woh samajh sake naa hum..

For a change i will not translate the above in Hindi, but this one pertains to the journey, that Hindu philosophy where the journey, its wonders and saga, keeps the travellers motivated to keep the walk going..Some days in that walk appears so excellent, full of life, shine and verve as if you were here for this precise purpose to live...

Today seems to be one such too! Though like the capricious clouds my moods change, yet it seems at least till now it still is. Thank you! Last night i was watching Iqbal and seeing the brother-sister chemisty in the movie, was remembering my own dear little one. She was in the capital of my country, that same time, hopefully taking another plunge of life.

When she was small, and i dont remember this story, but this gets repeated every now and then in our house's folk lore, she broke her leg. With a broken leg then, she went to her primary school admissions, won over the nuns at her missionary school with her zeal and bagged a seat in what was a critical thing in a small town then in the lives of our parents. A good education, they always believed, like most others, around the world, would give us both, sister and brother the fundamentals to walk forward in life.

I heard last week, that she sprained her leg again too. But look at her defiant self, she travelled to the capital, met her prospective match, and i hear things are going in the right direction too. When she called me to tell this, the first thing i felt was relief for her. Nobody can know this, but we, baba, maa, myself who are close to her, can only understand what she has gone or has been going through in life.

May god, baba lokenath give the right direction to her life. Out i spring from the bed after the call from home, try to make chowmein, fail miserably, ending up with a hotchpotch, walk out, flakes of snow oozed through on a sunny day, strange combination aint it.

I reach school, buy my daily quota of cigarette, and suddenly hear a bengali couple sprinkling away mishti, sweet bengali monotones at each other.

After a long time, more than 9 years of staying from the bengali environs in which i was groomed up, having travelled to north of india, mastered the art of functional hindi as well as the colloquial one, travelling to bombay for my job, and messing all that mastering too, having left home and the language that gives me the peace of my mind, when i hear songs in it, i asked them, "Aapnara Bangaali"..Are you bengalis!

You had to see the glitter in their eyes, the guy and the girl duo, pittsburgh residents, and deep within hidden a bengali soul, saying, haan, aamra kolkata theke..we from Calcutta, and then we introduce ourselves and then disperse as usual in the new-tech life of ours..

But i am touched, not by anything, but by that moment, in which i ask, not so usual of me to do, but still i did, "Aapnara Bangaali", and then they with glittering eyes answer, Haan, yes, Aamra Bangaali !!

Today thus to this ajeeb dastaan, to the land of the Royal Bengal Tigers, the strange story of "Aapnara Bangali!"

~Thank you..