VARUN

2006-11-04T20:37:00.000-08:00

CHAPTER 1 concludes....

The train squeaked and the 'exodus' of usha's family began. It ended in just a day as they reached their destination. Slowly but steadily, they got accustomed to the rural ambience. The transition from a shantytown in a metro to an obscure village was handled well by the family. Usha was an exception though. Unlike her siblings, She couldnt immerse herself in the mud of the courtyard nor was she like her mother who had engrossed herself totally in the rural female politics. Suryanath, on the other hand, had maintained his usual self. He was relieved to be freed from the drudgeries of Kolkata and felt salvaged in the friendly atmosphere of his village. Most of the times, he used to sit in the cool shadows of his garden. The fragrance there was a strange mixture of ripe fruits, blossomed garden and the moist mud of the fields. All in all, barring Usha, The family had coalesced itself well with the rural life.

Gradually, Usha came in terms with the circumstances and made peace with her life. Each element of her life slowly got juxtaposed among themselves. She learnt the local dialect and started participating in the daily 'conventions' of the females of the locality. She got herself acquainted with the antics of making mountains out of molehills. She now had friends in the locality. She was now the best student of her school. Her old dreams had now started resurfacing. Those reveries had made a comeback. The sun seemed brighter now.

And then that day came. Everyone in this world lives a day that they never forget untill their last breath. And this was the day for Usha. She would never forget the safari-clad person, in his 40s, who knocked their door that morning and the knock would always reverberate in heart, always.

Suryanath came out and welcomed him with unusual felicity and delight. Usha had never witnessed such a welcome before. Sweets that she had never seen outside the showcases of the shop were now adorning their table. She asked her mother as to what the bustle was all about but she would not speak anything. The reason for the sudden rejoice on the father's face and the fulminant pandemonium in the kitchen was beyond her comprehension. The sudden storm finally cam to a halt when the man said good bye. The air pacified now. It was the lull after the storm.
" Will anyone please tell me what is goin on here??" Usha shouted.

The silence was finally breached by the words of Suryanath...

" The person who was here is a very rich fellow and they have atleast 600 'bighas' of land."

"So?" asked Usha, perplexed.

"He has a nephew who is a medical student. He will soon be a doctor" replied Suryanath with pride.

"So what??" Usha shouted back gazing at the strange gleam in his eyes.

"So... You are marrying the boy...this winter..." Suryanath replied back in a relieved manner.

Usha stood there, transfixed, speechless.......

2006-10-10T11:30:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER 1 continued...

Usha had come as a messiah in the life of Suryanath and his wife. They felt no less than Joseph and Mary of Nazareth. Usha's mother conceived twice afterwords and Usha had a sister and the much awaited brother as well.

But the misery of the house remained the same. Suryanath couldn't afford a convent education for his children as it was only meant for the so-called upper class people constituting the crest of the society. Still, the index of happiness remained the same in the house.

They still had the revered 'rashogulla' at the first instance of the month. The fortnightly trip to Victoria Memorial and Howrah Bridge were never postponed. Suryanath tried his best to keep his children happy and ensure that the life in their modest dwelling amidst the industrial fumes and the dusty roads was better than those in the bungalows and apartments Usha keenly observed en route to their 'picnic'.
"Well, Money can't buy everything" had become his constant rhetoric.

It was in these rides from their house in Titagarh to the city centre in the heart of the city is when Usha started sewing her dreams in a special corner of her mind and heart. As she paved her way towards teenage, she started understanding the world around her in a much better fashion. She could now understand why her mom hid the extra rasgulla and give it to sandeep later in the day. Or why does Suryanath's eyes always turned moist whenever she mentioned her yearn to go to 'big white school' near Dum Dum. But in spite of these, the dreams were still being stitched. The dreams of wearing that white coat some day and people calling her 'madam' or 'Doctor didi'. Dreams of breaking the chains of poverty reigning in their house

Suryanath and his wife were now in the autumn of their lives. Usha was sixteen now. A girl of this age was a liability to any household at that time. The lines on the foreheads of the parents were bound to turn more prominent. But Suryanth had worse issues to ponder on. With not many years left in his job in the local jute mill, his life as a worker was going to end very soon.
Suryanath had already started to plan for his return to his native village in Bihar. The best part of this family was Suryanath's optimism about life. He had found his silver lining amidst the dark clouds of problems that had arrived in the sky of their lives.

His evenings were now dominated by the dreams of leaving the air filled with the dark soots and breathing in the clean and pristine airs of his village.
"No matter for how many years one lives in these cities, a village man will always be a village man" became Suryanath's new rhetoric.

And finally the dreaded day arrived. The day which was to change their lives, of all five of them, forever. The day of their 'homecoming' had come. As they stood at the platform , Suryanath had a dream of a future, a future with he ruling his own life, devoid of any white collar, sitting in his rural 'mansion's' courtyard...

His wife, with closed eyes, imagined sitting in a group with females gossiping in a language which she actually understood but on the same line, she was also drawing a picture of her future son-in-laws and more importantly the 'daughter-in-law'.

The younger sister, Shanti, was excited about her new school where people did not know bengali and of a house of their 'own'.

The youngest brother, Sandeep, still concentrated on the colourful candies dangling in the shop feet away. Issues like dreams, future and schools were words light years away of his mental horizon.

And finally, Usha, with her eyes twinkling with her own personal dreams. The dream which had she as a doctor and a groom on par with her.....

And the train arrived .......

2006-10-01T12:28:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER 1_ THE MOTHER

1966, In Calcutta, one of world’s most crowded and colourful cities, Suryanath hollered with joy.
"I am a father now!!"
he kept yelling. And he had all reasons in this world to be happy. After all, he had been waiting for this moment for almost two decades.
"You said I'd never see this day, right?"
...he was still yelling words which were, at times, beyond the comprehension of the crowd which had gathered outside his door. After seeing his wife pregnant for the last nine months, he himself was pregnant with joy now.

The 'city of joy' held its true meaning today for the couple's life. Suryanath's wife had given birth to a child in the wee hours of that morning. The couple had been childless for about 18 years. Life was difficult for the lady owing to the norms of the society she lived in. The society which has a diktat that a childless woman is as good as an unfruitful tree. She had been enduring this pain for quite some time. The trauma of being cursed by people all around as if she was the black cat which just crossed the road. But things were to change from now. This was the greatest dawn of Suryanath's life.

" Just go in and catch a glimpse of the angel, go in" he shouted to all.

Finally as he gave rest to his voice, someone among the herd of people gathered all his guts and said, "Surya jee, Dont you know It's a GIRL. Did you really wait for this moment all these years?". Suryanath remained calm and replied "Its not a girl Shivjee, It's a Goddess. The Almighty cant be that cruel to us. He kept us bereft of this joy for as long as I can remember and he cant send me an ordinary child now."
People still had a skewed sarcastic smile on their face for him. In a society where they lived, a female child was the last thing one wanted to have. But for Suryanath, the feminity of the child was no issue at all.
Finally, when the gathering dispersed and his tides of joy pacified to a certain extent, he came back inside his house. His wife lied on the bed with a visible smug on her face. She was fresh from the greatest pleasure a woman can ever feel in her entire life, the feeling of giving birth to a child. One of the testimony of the divinity of a woman, she can create life.

The child rested in the cradle flanking the bed. Suryanath took the baby in his hand and asked innocently,
" Will she start speaking after she wakes up?".
"Of course not, but you can still understand what she wants to say".
" What do we call her?"
"She has dispelled the darkness of those long black nights of our lives...she is the heavenly light of our life"
"We call her Usha then..."
"Usha..."
The sunlight reached the face of the baby through the crevice on the ceiling...

"The Sun had never beamed like this..." said the proud father.

2006-09-27T15:38:00.000-07:00

FOREWORD

Well i couldnt help myself anymore. The latest vogue named 'blogging' which has really hogged the air around me for some time now, has finally won the race. Therefore,here I am...

I would like to start my "blogging odyssey" with an overview of what you can expect on this page in the forthcoming days. I will try to take you to a journey. A journey to the life and times of a person or rather a mind or lets just call him 'he' for now coz i really find it difficult to christen him .

He is a character motivated by many contradictory impulses. Such contradictions may not be clearly understood but if u try to explore his thoughts in depth, you would sometimes realize the irrational bases of much human thought. One of the most salient characteristics of his is "profound self-contempt combined with an exquisitely sensitive ego"- a rare combination that seems to govern most of his thoughts and action. He,at times,seems to take an all-out assault on society in which he lives but is not agile enough to actually do something for it. In short, My story contains a character whose childhood experiences have led him to fear love and intimacy even though he longs for them or lets say I portray an anti-hero, a protagonist utterly lacking every trait of the Romantic hero and living out a futile life on the margins of society.

Now for the people, who after reading the above lines are actually looking forward to the story, there is something more which you ought to know before you embark upon the journey.

Because the narrator of this story is a thoroughly disagreeable person who seems to go out of the way to offend his readers, some care is needed to read the story well. First, it is important to keep in mind that the HE is not Kumar Varun. He shares some of my ideas, but he may also be the target of my satire. I, once in a while, enjoy handicapping myself by placing some of my favorite arguments in the mouth of a character which is otherwise always despised. I want you to be aware of all the strengths and weaknesses of 'his', and make your mind up independently.

Second, although I am pretty sure that some of my readers may find that they are identifying with the protagonist to some extent, unlike most popular fiction, this is not a story in which you are expected to identify with the narrator. The danger is, in fact, that the reader will become so exasperated with his tone and manner as to simply refuse to pay attention what he is saying. So, as an author of this story, I ll suggest you to consider my protagonist as a complex portrait, lacking surface appeal, but filled with fascinating detail which reveals itself only upon close examination.

Third, it is crucial not simply to let 'his' self-contradictions cancel each other out and dismiss him as a madman whose ravings are not worth deciphering. It is precisely in the tension between various emotions and ideas that significance of the his narrative lies. Close reading will reveal a careful and consistent psychological portrait.

This story is a sustained argument containing scraps of narrative, introducing the He to you and articulating his assault on rationalism and progress and delineating what he thinks is wrong with the modern self-conscious intellectuals around him (including himself). His childhood, teenage, love, friendship etc etc....

So keep your fingers crossed!!!