For Putul and Memories.......

Have you read ‘Rebecca’ by Daphne Du Maurier? If you haven’t, do. It’s what I call the perfect ‘novel’, an incredibly well written piece of fiction that is also perfect for a re-read anytime. It’s a story of this young girl, a poor orphan who at the beginning of the novel seems destined to live out the remainder of her life as companion to rich and crabby widows and whose life is turned upside down (rather deliciously though) when she meets and falls in love with a much older man. Though it appears to be a rather one-sided affair, they get married (yes, and that too right at the very beginning of the novel!!!) and she goes to live with her husband in his ancestral home in the country. The house, called Manderlay is described as this beautiful, Gothic and mysterious country chateau and it is here that the actual plot unfolds. We are now introduced to the diva like first wife Rebecca, long dead, yet her memories haunt every nook and cranny of the house, the sinister housekeeper Mrs. Danvers, the shadows of a violent secret hidden behind the Gothic walls and of course the blossoming of the hitherto one-sided love affair between the girl and her husband. It’s the perfect book to pick up on a cold foggy winter evening and read curled up comfortably on your bed, under your favourite quilt, the lights dimmed, and a cup of hot coffee steaming by your side (latte of course;  black does not team well with ‘Rebecca’!)……..

But then I am digressing and severely so. I confess I got carried away by that very inviting ‘winter evening’ image….! Now I’ll tell you why I remembered ‘Rebecca’. It’s because the novel begins with these words, “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”

Plagiarism is an unforgivable offence in the writers’ world but having convinced myself that Ms Du Maurier would surely forgive an ardent fan such as me ‘plagiarising’ one teeny weeny  line from her novel, I’ll begin........

Last night I dreamt I went to LCR again….!

I dreamt I stood in front of its large iron gates, painted shiny black with  ‘L……….C……….R………’ written in large white letters over its centre. Those shanty shops selling toffees and what-nots still stood and the smell of the perpetually clogged drain running alongside the walls was still strong. I pushed the gates and entered. The red sanded road curved around the large garden in the front and as I walked past, I could see the sweet pea tendrils curve lovingly over the thin split bamboo frames, the scent of their pink blossoms still as sweet. I followed the red road ahead, down towards that low red building with tiled roofs and cute stocky chimneys. As I crossed the little passage between Mother Superior’s office and the chapel, my glance fell on the right where a large number of school shoes lay outside the chapel door. They beckoned. So I turned and climbed up the low steps onto the porch. The white wooden doors of the chapel looked the same, with little black ridges where the paint had peeled off and the old wood had cracked. The little white stoup was there in its place and as an old habit, I dipped my fingers into its heart, soft with the little sponge and anointed my face and chest with the holy water. I pushed the door and entered the chapel. It  was comfortably dim inside and reverentially silent as little girls with oiled hair in pigtails, blue shirts and beige skirts kneeled over shiny wooden pulpits. They looked very familiar and I knelt beside them, right there on those wooden pulpits with the thin green cushions, under the kind eyes of Mother Mary with the infant Jesus in her arms. I bent my head down to pray and when I looked up again I found myself standing in the school playground right outside Open Hall.

 I realized that since this was a Dream, the physics and chemistry of the real world did not apply here. Quite happy at this ‘Harry Potter’esque kind of situation, I walked into Open Hall. The pillars looked the same, wide enough to hide you when playing hide and seek but hard enough to give you ugly potato like bumps on your head if you happened to collide against one. Those green tables with white crow droppings colouring their tops and the green benches still stood in a row at one end of the hall. At the other end balancing beams with red and white zebra markings were stacked carelessly. Never one for physical activity, I hastily left them behind and moved on. I confess I really never could see the logic or fun of doing silly things like trying to balance oneself on a slippery beam where the danger of falling and getting painful ‘potatoes’ on your head was very real.

Moving ahead, I entered the dark corridor next to the library. Now that was more my kind of place, I thought happily. I had spent so many delicious hours in the library, curled up with a book in one of those armchairs by the windows or sat poring over books on the reading tables, as sunlight filtering in through the cream curtains turned everything to a warm gold…..!

I’ll go there later, I told myself and moved forwards towards the stairs. The high steps leading to the Teachers’ Room on the right was still piled high with notebooks covered in brown paper. Low voices emanated from the depths of the room. I just couldn’t help myself from taking a peek through the gap in the swing doors. Saree clad teachers sat correcting notebooks, drinking tea or simply gossiping. Most look familiar, some didn’t. But scared of being caught peeping, I retreated hastily before they could spot me and quickly made my way up the stairs. That was class 3A, right at the beginning of the first floor corridor, next to the stairwell, the pretty Miss Bhatnagar’s class. I walked along, past the massive cork board on my right covered with drawings of the King and Queen of Hearts , the Knave, the Mad Hatter and the disappearing Catterpillar from Alice in Wonderland and then between 3B on my right and Sister Maria’s Office on the left. Head down, I crossed this part almost in a run as I didn’t want her catching me loitering in the corridors during class hours. Then I came to a halt!

            Stop being ridiculous, I scolded myself.                                                You are no longer a student here.

            Of course, that’s correct, I smiled in relief at the realisation, and  continued ‘loitering’ down the corridor. I passed the other junior classrooms on my way, 4C on my right, 4B on my left, 5A on my right……

Here I stopped and walked in. This was Mrs Mathew’s class, the beautiful Mrs Mathew with long thick plait reaching right down to her back, two tiny moles sitting exactly opposite each other on her nose, one above and one below and her perfect British English……!

But now the class was empty except for a little girl who sat in the last row of the second column of iron benches, busy colouring something in her book. With wispy hair that resembled candy floss tied in two pigtails with sky blue ribbons, she was dark and frail. She looked so familiar that curious, I inched forward to take a better look. And when I was so close to her as to be able to see the light bounce off her candy floss hair, she raised her head and looked up at me.

Putul!!! My heart almost stopped beating, Putul……Oh my God…. Its Putul………!!!!

Tears clouded my eyes….!!!!

Putul ……Oh Putul…..Putul, Putul,Putul…!!!!

The girl smiled at me as if it was the most natural thing in the world to chance upon your school mate who had died more than thirty years ago, sitting in the same bench where she used to sit, in the same school uniform, still the very same in every little way from the top of her wispy haired head to the tips of her ballerina shoed toes.

Hi Aibee, she said, in her high pitched sweet voice and continued to smile.

 I was aware that this was a Dream and a Harry Potteresque one at that and that I should suspend all disbelief; but having done that, I was still confused about something.

You recognized me? I asked her, incredulously. Even after all those years?

Why? she countered, as if a little surprised at my question.

No, I tried to reason. Dekh, its been more than thirty years and I have changed, haven’t I?

She retorted, But you recognized me……!

That’s because you haven’t changed, silly. I told her breathlessly.

Well, you haven’t too !  she remarked and smiled,  again.

I inched forward a little more and then trifle hesitantly sat down next to her. But I needn’t have hesitated for it was my bench too, at least it had been during those days in 5A when Putul and I had sat next to each other for the twelve whole months of fifth grade. I don’t know how we got assigned our seats and when asked by my rather strict Mom, How come you being a good student get to sit on a last bench? I had had no answer. Initially a little unhappy, as I had never sat in a Last Bench, the connotations of this seat being that only failures and dropouts and bad students sat on last benches, I soon realized that the last bench was simply that, a bench that occupied the rear of a row and did not mean that you were a poor student if you sat on it. I think probably the express reason for this arbitrary allocation of seats that year by the teachers was some kind of exercise to drill this self-same thing into every one head and prevent typecasting. Well it certainly succeeded.

We had had a roaring time that year, Putul and I, on that dirty-orange, severely scratched iron bench that screeched like a banshee when moved.

Yes we did, Putul echoed my            thoughts aloud.

I looked at her in surprise, You can read my thoughts?

She didn’t answer, just smiled.

So what are you drawing, I asked her, Catechism again?

Yes.

Show me.

She pushed the copy towards me.

It was Putul’s catechism copy, just as I remembered it. One side was blank while the other side was ruled. The blank side was filled with Putul’s exquisite drawings, of the Last Supper, The Resurrection, a Nativity Scene……! Putul’s handwriting was rather wispy just like her hair and the ruled pages filled with her wraith like writing in a faint blue ink gave the whole notebook an unreal dreamlike quality. Even those beautiful drawings were wispy as if you were looking at them from behind a translucent piece of plastic….!

 I remember reading her copies of that 10 paisa leaflet called Soldiers of God, reading voraciously through her catechism copy itself for not only did it contain her delicate drawings but also her assignments which often had stories from the Bible which I enjoyed. She told me all about her Catechism class, a class which only the Catholic girls took. Because of her stories, the eternal mystery of the Catechism class was revealed to me, a non Christian in full measure. She would tell me about her brothers with whom she fought tooth and nail, daily, without fail, for some reason or other. I would marvel at her drawing skills and would even tried to copy her. And thus I had stayed beside her for 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days or maybe more, reading, writing, laughing, joking, cribbing, snoozing; but never once did I get even a whiff of the fact that she was ill, suffering from childhood diabetes. It’s only when we returned from the vacation intervening classes seven and eight that we came to know that she had died during the holidays due to what I now think must have been diabetic keto-acidosis due to uncontrolled blood sugar levels, common in this particular form of the disease in children.

You never told me you had diabetes. I told her accusingly.

She continued colouring, tiny smile lighting up her face.

I kept on. You know how shocked I was when they said you had died? I still get dreams of you telling me that, no you are not actually dead, that you’d just gone away…..! Tears clouded my eyes.

She took my hand, saying, Dreams are lovely aren’t they, Aibee?

Come, let’s go downstairs.

Ahhhhhhh, the advantages of Dreams. There was no need to do boring things like walking…….Instead, we simply wafted through the door, down the corridor, past the remaining classes, 7A, 7B, 7C, then the green hued Biology lab with the skeleton still swinging eerily on a stand next to the window, the chemistry lab on the landing, its foul smelling hydrogen sulphide for a change making me feel happily nostalgic…We floated down the stairs and I must say, one felt elegant floating, rather like a model walking the ramp. And with no one looking, I even gave my hip what I thought was an elegant wiggle, a la Jessie Randhawa. But then I had to put on hold my modeling aspirations as Putul had floated much ahead of me. So discarding all that floating, I now simply ran after her, down those old familiar stairs, their mosaic glinting, polished by the millions of footsteps that had passed over them since the day school began. And it felt real good to rush thus, just like in those old days, brakeless, fearless and free!

As we neared the IX C classroom, Putul asked me, Want to go sit on the roof?

Which roof, I asked, a little confused. We had never sat on any roof during school days.

She pointed to the terracotta tiled roof of the Principal’s office.

There? I spurted. How on earth do we climb up there?

But it was a needlessly foolish question in my current situation. We of course, simply floated up. As we stationed ourselves right there on the bridge of the roof, I glanced down. Girls had come out for recess and the playground was full. Groups of girls stood eating ‘tiffin’, some ran aimlessly on the grounds, others sat comfortably over a grassy patch and gossiped happily.

We never shared tiffin, Putul. I told her.

She nodded in agreement. Yes, your tiffin friends were different.

I laughed remembering. Yeah my tiffin friends were different. You know it was SM, DB, SK and me always at tiffin time. For close to twelve years we had eaten our lunch together.

They’ve all grown up now, Putul, I told her.

She laughed, Really?

Yes, DB and SM have grown up boys, teenagers. Can you believe it? I marveled. Putul smiled.

Suddenly, a ripple of something akin to excitement but more sinister flitted across the entire playground.  I found the girls sitting up, removing hair from their faces and patting their ponies into place, fumbling for their badges and straightening those up and I even spotted a few of them surreptitiously rubbing their shoes against their socks to bring some shine on their dust covered fronts.

Then the clippety clop of stilettos sounded on the concrete floor of Open Hall and a collective shiver ran down the spine of the crowd as each girl involuntarily stood or sat up straight. I found myself straightening up too, and there on my precarious perch on the roof, it was a movement fraught with danger and I would have actually fallen right off if Putul hadn’t clutched at me at the last moment.

Putul, Sr Maria!!! I croaked breathlessly. Think she can see us on the roof? I continued in a hoarse whisper.

Putul began giggling with an unceremonious mirth that I completely failed to reciprocate. I was thinking…If Sister Maria saw us on the roof, she would surely cook us over a spit and have our barbecued ribs for dinner……

Sister Maria was fifty-something, plump, stocky and completely un-pretty…..!But no model who has ever walked on stilettos could match up to the elan with which this nun in a white habit sashayed over the entire school on her high heels. I too am wont to wear stilettos often and though still younger to her, can’t for the life of me sashay the way she did : arms dancing, hips swinging,  blue veil  undulating…….! And she was Mother Terror, even for the teachers who were scared stiff of her. She had this habit of waving one long bony finger at a frozen-with-fear class of students and announcing menacingly, Wherever, whenever something wrong is happening, God sends me at the right time to make things right…!

And sure enough today too, wrong things were being righted down below. She had caught a girl with paint on her nails. With hot pink nail paint shining like searchlights on my nails too, I felt immense pity well up for the quaking girl as she stood head bowed, probably wishing that the earth would swallow her for ever ……!

Putul seemed to have had enough. She grabbed my arm and said, Chal Closed Hall chalte hain. So we floated down once more right over the heads of Sister Maria still lecturing the petrified girls of how the Devil dwelt in those who painted their nails, straight into Closed Hall.

Practice for a musical was in progress. Putul and I went and sat down with a host of other girls, right there on the floor, cross-legged.

Sister Anne Marie was perched at her little low stool before the piano and the familiar strains of ‘Way way back many centuries ago…’ filled the air.

I laughed happily, Putul, its ‘Joseph and his Technicolor                  Coat’!

This was an American musical by that famous duo, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Weber, (of the ‘Phantom of the Opera fame) that we had staged in class IX, and that year it had taken the entire English speaking school scene in Ranchi by storm. And the entire credit of course went to the master director Sister Anne Marie, Sister–in-Charge Senior School and the Wizard of the Piano. An extremely melodious piece of work, we girls had taken to the musical like ducks to water and I remember spending all my evenings at home humming songs from the play and driving my parents and brother nuts with so much Angrezi Gaana.

Practice was in session up there on the stage. Look, I announced happily, there’s the Pharaoh. And Potiphar with his adulterous wife. And the eleven jealous brothers of Joseph. And Jacob , Joseph's Dad….One by one the well known figures passed on the stage, singing their lines, familiar and loved.

And then I spotted Joseph himself. Joseph, the handsome and good man, the hero of the play…. Joseph now in the court of the pharaoh and a big hit with the Egyptians, surrounded by the Adoring Girls who crooned seductively, beautiful sirens with flowers in their hair.....!

 Tall, lanky, with short cropped hair and an adorable flick, our classmate SS was a hit as Joseph and there were adoring girls not just on stage but gaggles of them all over the school. All through that term they either sent her little notes of mushy adulation or stood giggling at the corners of school corridors to collectively blush when Joseph passed them by. How we had enjoyed the whole thing, laughing and giggling……

Have you adored ? Putul suddenly asked me.

I looked at her, Sorry, did you say adored?

Yup! she said. Amusement glinted in her eyes.

I conceded. Yes but sparingly!

Handsome or Good ? she asked.

Only Good, Putul, only Good. I told her. And the Good are so rare….! I rued.

Ancient wisdom played across her face, But in the end, that is all that matters , doesnt it?

Yes, that is all that matters Putul, I echoed, that is all! 

On stage, Joseph was singing:
I closed my eyes,
Drew back the curtain,
To see for certain,
What I thought I knew…

As the beautiful melody seeped into my soul, Putul once more tugged at my elbow, Want to see the Far Field?And so we were now in Far Field, that vast grass covered sports ground  ringed by large leafed teak trees. The two basket ball courts were also there, now snoozing in the afternoon sun. A few bright orange basket balls lay beside the court. I ran, picked up one and dribbled it around the court, a little clumsily, being out of practice. Then the hoop beckoned. I aimed and shot and of course missed. I was terrible at sports!  I caught the rebounding ball and threw it at Putul. She was like me, the ‘un-sporty’ kind and the huge ball seemed almost to knock the breath off her frail body. But then it didn’t matter any more and we giggled happily, giggled for the sake of giggling or maybe because it felt so terribly good to be there again, there on the court under the bright afternoon sky. Then I spotted the spider lily bushes.

Putul, do you remember those?

She looked at me askance.

I recalled how she had picked a single bulb from that bunch out there, had dug it out of the soil and for some unfathomable reason had given it to me. I had taken the bulb home and planted it right beside the parijat tree in my garden. The bulb had put forth leaves, great sword shaped leaves and the entire shrub  had grown huge over the years. It flowered almost daily during the monsoons, the faint sweet smell of the blossoms filling our evenings with a fragrance I can never forget. And the flowers themselves always reminded me of Putul, with thin white transluscent petals, wraithly , so much like her.

Suddenly, the bell rang, loud and clear right across the entire school.

          I looked at Putul, Which period is that?

          School’s over, Aibee. That’s the bell for the end of the                       last period.

          I have to leave now? I asked, though I knew the                                 answer.

          She nodded, Yes, school’s over dear! You’ve got to go.

          What about you, I asked her.

          I am here, she smiled.

          Can I come back?

          Of course, she nodded. Anytime. I will always be                               here, me and all the others. Always!

I put out my arms to hug her.

           You know I love you Putul, you and all the others…each                  one, every moment…....
But instead of the tiny bony body of Putul, I felt something furry and soft against my extended arms. I opened my eyes. Mimie was on the bed, tail wagging. She had come to investigate why her human was waving her arms in sleep and also why there was salty water on her human's face.

Fully awake , I looked around the familiar bedroom with its bright orange wall, orange curtains and orange bedspread, Kuttush snoring unconcerned on his back on the floor, four limbs stretched ceiling ward, the air conditioning on full blast and bits of daylight slipping in through the window. I knew one day this present would also turn into a Memory. But the best part of Memory was that I could go back to it any time, any day, anywhere…..And like she said, they would be waiting, Putul and all the Others…still the same, unchanged forever…..!  

Lolark

The vacation was to have been only Sikkim. And till we arrived back at the New Jalpaiguri railway station, it had been just that, only Sikkim. And Sikkim had been glorious , nestled high in the heart of the Himalayas, a mist-cooled, pine-greened Shangri La; crisscrossed by thin, high roads lined by hundreds of waterfalls, wild foaming mountain rivers tumbling headlong towards the plains below, sharp blue skies, the majestic snow clad Kanchenjunga and a gentle people with eyes that crinkled cutely as they smiled. Sikkim’s beauty was so absolute, so pure that it seemed to me, if God chose to live here on earth, this would be a great place for Him (or Her). And the feeling was strengthened by those millions of little cloth flags inscribed with Buddhist prayers that fluttered from every mountain top and every mountain home. And then there was that colossal golden statue of the Buddhist Guru, Padmasambhava, sitting peacefully atop a mountain and visible to all from hundreds of kilometres below. And right opposite him, on another mountain top, sat another gigantic statue, that of Lord Shiva, matted locks cascading down his back, tranquil in meditation and again visible from many, many miles away. As our vehicle wound its way slowly, back down the curved roads, words of ‘High Flight’ floated into my mind,

“ ... And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod,
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God!”

But the vacation was not to end with this beautiful epilogue. We were now en route to Varanasi, to take a dip in the Lolark Kund on the auspicious day of the Bhadrapad Shukla Shashthi. When I, the ever atheist questioned why, the entourage consisting of Extended Family went into ‘evasion mode’, not giving clear answers. So I checked with Internet Baba and then went fuming to Other Half with my discovery. According to Internet Baba, it was believed that if childless couples (point of reference: us) took a dip in the Lolark Kund on that particular day, they would beget children. I would not go, I told Other Half petulantly. How ridiculous, I fumed to him, to think that a dip in a silly pond would help a woman spawn? But Other Half with that look of infinite patience and understanding that he gets at those certain crucial periods of our lives, reasoned with me, “It’s just a dip in a pond, Sweetheart. If this dip makes the Family happy, let’s go and dip; where’s the harm?” It was a completely sensible response but my mind was afire with mutiny. So it was in thus a militant mood that I had embarked on the journey to Sikkim which had been the first part of our vacation, the second part being this Lolark thing. Sikkim with its untrammelled beauty and sanctity had calmed the restless militant inside of me but once back in the plains, the irritation began creeping back. But I kept my peace, if only in deference to Other Half’s calm reasoning.

And so here we were, at the entrance to the Lolark Kund on a hot humid dusty Varanasi dawn. I felt empty, there being nothing around me, nothing remotely divine that could inspire in me belief in whatever ritual we were to be performing soon. It was a typical North Indian city, crowded, dusty, with piles of rotting rubbish, people spitting with elan and a strong smell of cow dung. The autorickshaw wallah who drove us to the Kund gave me the once over when he was informed that we wanted to visit the Lolark Kund. I could read his mind, ‘This must be the childless woman.’ Pity flitted across his early morning rheumy eyes, “Very famous, Lolark Kund,” he informed us, his tone strangely kind, eyes still on me. “Many couples have been blessed with children after taking a dip here...!” My insides cringed at his pity, like in a bad stomach flu.

The belief at Lolark goes that a childless woman should offer a fruit of her choice into the Kund and then for the rest of her life forgo that particular fruit from her diet. To me, it meant that the gesture was a kind of a sacrifice to be made by the woman in return for a child in her womb. As I was on my best ‘go along with the crowd’ mood, fair enough an exchange, I reasoned and went looking for a suitable fruit to buy. A number of elderly women sat lining the street leading up to the Kund with fruits displayed for sale for just this purpose. They were calling out to me and when I went to take a closer look at their wares, my insides trebled up with a lethal combo of amusement, exasperation and derision. They had none of those fruits for sale that are commonly eaten and relished in our country. No apple, no banana, no orange, no guava, no litchi, no mango, no tender coconut, not even the odd ber, nothing! Instead, most of the so called fruits on sale were fruits I had never seen in my life before, wild inedible berry like things, an odd shrivelled lauki and in plenty, the spiky evil looking fruit of the datura, poisonous and completely unfit for human consumption. The irony of this ritual of ‘sacrifice’ was not lost on Other Half also. I saw his face wrinkle up in pure disgust. Happy that my thoughts on the subject had been vindicated, at least to him, I finally selected a palm fruit (after much searching), reasoning that since I loved the jaggery made out of this fruit, my ‘sacrifice’ would have some ‘meaning’.

Fruit bought, we made our way ahead towards the Kund. There was a queue and though we did not know it yet, it was a really long one made up of the thousands of people who had come from all over the country, some of whom had been camping there since the night before. As we inched forward at snail’s pace, I had time to study the teeming crowds around me. It was mainly made up of women and most of them by their attire, language and demeanour were from the poorer parts of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and maybe Madhya Pradesh. I did spot a few city folks like myself, young women in salwar suits surrounded by anxious family members (? in laws) looking completely out of place in that largely rural crowd.

The wait was long and the queue moved at the rate of a centimeter every half an hour. I felt the gall rising up my throat again and in order to distract my mind, began studying the women around me. They were mostly young, sickly and malnourished, probably been married for at the most five or six years, clad in those cheap brightly coloured synthetic sarees that rendered transparent and sticky by sweat, clung to their bodies like second skin. Burdened by the unforgivable crime of barrenness, most had no expression on their faces and no will in their limbs, being automatically pushed along forward by the crowd like rag dolls. Some, with a little more spirit, studied me as I studied them. I know they wondered about my ‘childless’ life as I wondered about theirs. A few of the women even smiled at me, empathic smiles of the sister-in-arm, smiles that said, ‘I know what you go through Sister, for I do the same!’

And so the crowd surged forward , very slowly though and we moved from the open street onto narrow claustrophobic gullies bound on both sides by naked brick walls built high like the walls of jails. The day worn on and with it, the heat and the humidity rose to unbearable levels. In that narrow confined space, with thousands of bodies crushed against each other, the heat was agonising. Sweat trickled uselessly down my back as there was no air flow to allow for it evaporate and cool my body. Sweat dripped down Other Half’s forehead too, mingling with the large beads of sweat on his chin and around his lips and down his back, his T shirt now sopping wet. But he stood firm, towering over that generally short population, stoic, expressionless. I wondered what he was thinking but got no clue from his unreadable face.

Then, the women began to collapse. ‘Heat exhaustion’, ‘heat syncope’, the diagnoses began running through mind as we both returned to being doctors, tending to the fainting women. Family began handing over water and salt and sugar as we made impromptu ORS solutions and fed the women. Those who had already fainted, we placed in the recovery position, head down, feet elevated, torso left lateral. In those narrow confines between the two walls, it was a difficult task but atleast it gave me something to do and prevented the militant from rising again within my mind. Some people from beyond the walls now began dropping water from buckets over the crowds below. Though a trifle irritating it was cooling and helped ease the heat. Bottles of drinking water also began to be passed around much to the relief of the fainting women.  But this relief was short lived for in spite of having fainted, most of these women were dragged back into the queue by their inflexible Family. In the beginning, I protested with the Family, let her rest, she will die if you keep her here, I begged and pleaded at times, and at times tried to impose. But no one listened. The desire for a progeny to carry their name forward into the dim future, to place the sacred fire at their dead mouths was so great that no one paid heed, ignoring me completely as if they did not hear my voice. Other Half seeing my distress placed his hands over my shoulders both to calm and to stall me. And so I gave up,  beaten both by the rising heat and the indescribable apathy.

By now we had progressed to the main entrance of the Kund. It was teeming with people and through the gaps in the bodies around me, I glimpsed what this whole Kund thing was all about. Bound by a towering naked brick wall on one side was a water tank which I guessed must be the fabled Kund. About fifty to sixty concrete steps ran down to it from one side and the other two sides were ringed by a steel railing. The typical Indian habit of pushing and shoving which till now had been absent, now commenced with vengeance as we neared the Kund and so Other Half gripped my arm in his strong grasp to prevent me from falling. As we began descending down the steps, I realised there was no place to put your foot down without slipping as women had discarded their clothes at every point around the Kund; on the steps, in the water, on the porch and the nylon sarees, soggy with water formed a kind of slide on the stairs, so that one careless step and you were in danger of sliding headlong into the Kund. Grasping onto Other Half for dear life, I gingerly made my way down. But as they neared the Kund,  something maniacal seemed to be happening to the women there as they needlessly pushed and shoved their way to the water’s edge. Over that short span of about fifty steps, I must have slipped about five times and double that number of times, been pushed by the women themselves. Twice I had had my feet pricked by broken glass bangles that lay surreptitiously in wait, covered by the discarded sarees. We reached the last step to the Kund and there as we paused to catch our breath, I finally had a look at the water that was to bring wombs to fruit. (Bad metaphor, I know but couldn’t help it).

And I was transfixed with horror at what I saw. A fifty feet by fifty feet stone tank (I may be wrong about the dimensions, though), it was a seething mass of brownish black water. But very little of the water was actually visible. Instead, all that you could see were masses and masses of discarded clothes that clogged the pool and set it seething like a live animal each time someone dipped herself into the pool and re-emerged. Piles and piles of fruit, all those datura, palm and lauki bobbed on the water surface, their movements reminding me of the nodding of decapitated skulls from a particularly vile Ramsay Brother flick. At one end stood a man, goon-like who ostensibly was the Panditji.  As he began haggling with Other Half, I looked around me and realised that the entire enclosure was now covered every inch in clothes discarded by the devotees. There was no floor, no wall, no railing visible ; only wet trails of clothing that covered everything in a ragtag of mismatched colours. Oh, I haven't told you about the clothes, have I ? Sorry, I forgot. You see, the ritual is only considered complete when the couple after taking a dip, leave their wet clothing as offering to the Kund. 
By now the haggle complete with the priest, Other Half gently pulled me down into the water. As I gingerly lowered my foot into the water, looking for a firm foothold below, something brushed against my leg. I ignored it initially but as I placed my other foot into the water, something sinewy wound itself against my foot. I screamed and grasped onto Other Half, yanking my foot out of the water. A saree had wound itself against my leg. Relieved and a bit shamefaced, I lowered myself into that murky water again. Even now I could feel things , creepy things move against my legs, but I steadfastly held onto to Other Half, trying to stem that rising head of panic.

Now, to 'Dip'....! To allay my anxiety, Other Half went first, easily dipping his torso into the muddy water without a  qualm.And as his head disappeared for a second into that dark depth, a prickle of fear caught my throat. But he emerged immediately, unscathed and gestured me to follow suit. But I began dithering, and seeing me dither thus, that goon of a priest put his paw like palm over my head and unceremoniously dunked me into the depths. I don’t remember exactly what happened except for that rush of unadulterated fear that filled my entire being. The water was muddy, a sickening brownish black, completely opaque and reeking of the sweat and salt and dirt from the thousands of bodies that had bathed there that day before me. It felt as I submerged my head into it, that I would never be able to come out of it, that something utterly vile would drag me into those dark shivery depths and I would never see the light of day again......!
However, the ritual was not yet over. Two more dips had to be taken. But this time I placed myself well away from the hands of the goon priest and with the force of all the courage and self control that I could summon, I managed two quick abbreviated dips into the water. The moment I had completed my third dip, I turned round and literally fled, up those same steps, unmindful of both their slippery-ness and of those sharp shards of broken bangles that vicariously lay in wait.

But the ordeal was not yet over. Now, the clothes we wore had to be discarded. But there was no place to change, no arrangements made by the temple authorities. I looked around me. Women were taking off their wet clothes there right in the open and slipping into fresh ones behind makeshift curtains of sarees and towels held aloft by female relatives. Seeing me dither again, Family now began insisting, “Change, change, you have to leave these clothes here!!!” Again the panic gripped me: change here in front of these thousands of people?????? But there was no escape, the ritual had to be completed. Family made a ring around me and just like those thousands of wretched women that day, I too undressed in public, shielded only by a flimsy towel ‘curtain’. The wretchedness did not end there, “Discard your undergarments too!” screamed Family. And that was the last straw. The sheer ignominy of the whole situation descended upon me like a ton of bricks and I felt those tell tale tears begin to blur my vision. And as I took off and threw away the gentle yellow cotton kameez that had been with me for so many years and had been a special favourite, I had a glimpse of the sky above me. The sky has always been my friend, wide, open and welcoming; but today in her incandescent gray colour, featureless, expressionless  and unforgiving, she too gave me no respite!

As we returned to the hotel, I rushed almost headlong into the bathroom to take a bath and get that muck from the Kund off me. At first I scrubbed myself with my own bar of scented toilet soap. But it seemed to me as if I could not remove that murk from the pool that still appeared to tenaciously cling to my skin. So I took a bar of Rin sitting on the washbasin and began scrubbing myself with it. It was almost after five full minutes of scrubbing like a madwoman with that caustic bar of soap, that I came to my senses. I quickly washed it off me, composed myself and emerged from the bathroom to return to my own familiar comfortable world. 
Lolark had happened to me quite some time back and all that murk and dirt of course is long gone now and the sharpness of its memory too has dulled. But deep inside  me, I know Lolark will never go, for it has scarred me for ever, branding with red hot tongs my childlessness onto my consciousness,  for life!

For Debjani........and all the Others

Ekhane ekhon raat,
Dhushor, himel, sheet ek raat.
Tobe, etto bodo ekta chaand uthechhe,
Shonar jole bandhano.

Tor okhane to ekhon shokaal,
Notun bochhorer prothom shokaal
Tui message pathali, bheeshon thanda,
Borof tatano, jodiyo borofpaat hoyeni ekhono.

Ek raat theke ek shokaal e
Dui bondhute
Chat hochche ekhon WhatsApp e
Ki bheeshon moja!!

WhatsApp er screen bolchhe:
“Debjani is typing....”
Opekhaaye ami.
Moner screen e kintu tokhon dekhchhi:
Lomba ami, chotto tui-
School playgrounder shei aam gaachtar neeche dariye
Top kore hotath haath bariye
Tui ekta toshtoshe shobuj kaancha aam parli!
Ami to stunned:-

“First girl tui Debjani,
Rules break korli?”
“Mother Superior bolechhen na:
‘The mango trees have been sold,
Do not pluck mangoes, girls
They are no longer ours!’
Tor expression tokhon rebellious:-
“Dhut, school to amader, gaachh guliyo;
Ne aamta chakh, nooner shathe daarun lage!”

Ei shedin i ke jeno chobita pathalo
WhatsApp ei:
School playground er
Tana mosreen concrete e bandhano ground
Amader aam gachta aar nei.
Monta tai ektu koshto pelo!

Moner screen e ekhon koto chobi:
Tor shei tin er pencil box
Kon ek J Perumala Chetty r company.
Aar taar modhya shajaano
Onekguli kalo chokchoke pencil
Their points perfect like Jimmy Choo 
 stilettos
Aamar lolup drishti oi pencilgulor proti
Tui khub shabdhaane ekta baar kore
Aamake dhoriye dili
Amar haathe tokhon jeno sotti sotti
Ekta 1000$ Jimmy Choo!!!

Aar ekdin shei je
Shojarur onekguli kaanta
Jaani na kothatheke tui niye eli
Koyekta tor pencil gulir moton:
Kaalo chokchoke.
Baakiguli shaada.
Shei kaalo shaada shojarur kaanta niye
Aamra, tui, ami ar baakira
Ki je bheeshon khushi.
Happiness complete!

Purono sreeti, purono chhobi
Ekhono fade hoyeni ektuku
Ekhono glaze finish ta chokchok korchhe!
Kintu chobi to after all shudhu chobi-ee
Tai mone hoye,
Ishhh, chol phire jai
Chottobelar shei dingulite.
Toke likhe pathalam ichcheta.
Tui the ever sensible First Girl,
Palta message dili:
Thaak na dinguli sreeti hoye
Moner page e
Jibon taake egote de
Why move backwards?
Jokhon mon korbe,
Moner screen ei dekhe nebo!

Ta thik, First Girl
You’re right, as always!!!!

Tai bolchchi:
Chole aaye Reunion e
Purono friends mile,
Notun sreeti bandhbo. 

My African Safari Part II

We spent the night at Nairobi, at a hotel in the centre of the city, located right at its very busy, very crowded and very traffic-jammed heart. Exhausted by the whole-night flight as also by the sensory overload of a new country, I collapsed onto the hotel bed and as I sunk into its welcoming bosom, I realised for the first time in my life the value, and I mean the real value of being able to sleep horizontally on a real bed, and not at an obtuse angle at some airport-lounge-chrome-plated-vinyl-skinned-unforgiving-metal-chair that harboured pretensions of affording five-star comfort....!  

Our hotel room was cool, the bed soft and the sheets clean and though all night traffic honked and buzzed on the streets below us and the discotheque next door blared Swahili and old English rock and roll, Other Half and I  slumbered undisturbed, like two Kumbhkarans imported from India....

The next morning, refreshed and renewed, we were on time at the dining hall for our first Kenyan breakfast. But sadly there was nothing Kenyan about it, it being a typical Continental menu. But I must make a mention of three things that caught the interest of my blogger brain at this breakfast: one, the juice they served was actually fresh mango juice, a lovely dusky pink and very yummy; two, the coffee, which was local Kenyan, strong and aromatic; and three, the chef taking our egg order, a flamboyant and gallant Kenyan gentleman (i.e. as flamboyant and as gallant as one can manage to be while cooking eggs!) I say flamboyant because he wore a flamboyantly tall chef’s hat and gallant because he handed over my fried eggs with an elaborate flourish and a loud announcement of “Ladies...., first!” Never having been served eggs or for that matter anything else so royally in my entire life, I was completely floored and spent the remaining breakfast eating my double fried in a happy haze!!!!

We then moved onto the next phase of our safari, i.e. meeting up with our safari operator and our safari mates. Our tour firm, called Big Time Safaris, comprised of a number of extremely affable Kenyans and on being introduced to its owner , I reasoned that it was probably named so in honour of the ‘bigness’ of this gentlemen...! Of ample proportions, a generous middle and impeccably dressed in a suit and tie and shining brogues, he was given to much guffawing and bear hugging and back slapping; in all a jovial Kenyan Santa Klaus minus the beard and the red fur coat....He grasped Other Half in a bear hug on introduction as if they were long lost brothers and I almost heard Other Half’s ribs crackling with the pressure of that hug. The whole atmosphere there was very genial and very loud with much hugging, laughing and backslapping and I got the feeling that the Kenyans are an affable lot.

We were also introduced to our chauffeur cum tour guide, the mighty Jackson. Tall, lean with bad teeth and a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, he was a Kenyan Popeye with an attitude to match. I’ll tell you why I added that attitude bit. Jackson was an etiquette nitpicker. On being introduced to us, while Other Half had shaken his hands genially, I had demurred a split second (truly, my bad) and quick to catch on, Jackson had insisted, “Shake my hand, Mamma!!!” Sheepishly I had had to extend my hand which he had then enveloped in a vigorous Kenyan handshake....! It was embarrassing to say the least, to be nit-picked thus. But I am happy to say I had my revenge later. At breakfast the next day, Jackson stood next to us at the buffet table and eager not to repeat my bad behaviour from the day before, I took the trouble (yes, it is trouble for introverts like me) to wish him good morning, asking whether he had had a good night. Jackson smiled and replied in the affirmative. However, it seems that this morning rendezvous had slipped from his mind and later as we were boarding the vehicle, he couldn’t help ticking me off again: “You should say good morning to me, Mamma and ask how my night had been!” But I was ready. Looking at him straight in the eye (line of vision at an acute angle he being six foot plus and me being five foot nothing!) and bursting with righteous indignation, I shot back the counter accusation, “You do not remember meeting me at breakfast !!!!” Ah, it was sheer pleasure to see the spark die out from his eyes as remembrance dawned on him. Defeated, he turned away without a word, shoulders hunched. Revenge, aren’t thou sweeter than the roshogolla...?

But Africa was beckoning and I had to perforce tear my mind away from the gloating and drink in the beauty of the African savannah unfolding around us. It was a beautiful winter morning with crisp air and blue skies and we rode northwards on the Great North Road towards the Great Rift Valley view point. Our safari mates had by now joined us. We were a very international kind of group, one the mighty Jackson officially christened ‘Jacksons Team’. Beside us desis, there was only one other couple , newly-weds from Turkey, comprising of the petite and incredibly pretty Bunch of Flowers (BoF) and her husband the completely bare- headed and completely quiet Mr Strong and Silent. There were also the three tall and lanky Danes from Copenhagen, budding doctors practising presently at Zanzibar. These young men with otherwise very good manners spent the entire trip chattering non-stop in their native tongue. Understandably I could not understand a word; and this would otherwise not have bothered me much, except that the only word from their conversation that I recognised and winced each time it hit my eardrums was the ‘F’ word. This word so generously sprinkled their conversation that I am completely convinced that ‘F’ word is originally Danish! The last member and the only lone ranger was an affable young man from Finland with such a propensity to either forget something or drop something or trip over something that I’ll name him the ‘Awkward Finn’ (AF).

The Great North Road was wide and smooth with the early African savannah on either side, consisting of low faded-green grasslands dotted with the flat topped acacia. Traffic was sparse and we rode comfortably, at times almost nodding off with the smoothness of the ride. Jackson informed us that that we would at first be climbing uphill towards the Great Rift Valley viewpoint and then be descending down into the valley itself. Sure enough, we were soon ascending over a typical Ghat like landscape, with low stony hills rising on our left and the great African Rift Valley stretching far away beyond the escarpment to our right. A curious tree grew in abundance on the hill slopes, a cactus like thing with a single woody stem and multiple branching green cactus like shoots. I enquired of Jackson (now a good friend) about it and he said it was an Euphorbia. Well the only Euphorbia that I knew of was that extremely thorny household shrub with pretty red flowers from back home, a favourite of most Indian home gardeners being a hardy little plant requiring very little care. And knowing that Jackson like all good guides had this propensity to fib when without an answer, I stored the info at the back of my brain to be cross checked later. But Jackson had not been fibbing because later when I consulted my friend Wiki, I found out that both these plants were of the common genus Euphorbia, the Indian flowering shrub being called E. milii ( yes, with a double ii) while the African cactus was E. ingens, also very aptly called the candlebra tree and it possessed a very irritant poisonous sap.

There were these little tourist stops on the left of the road at the edge of the  slope and we stopped at one of them. Jackson made a formal announcement in typical Jackson style that this was to be photography stop, a shopping stop, a use-the-washroom stop and of course a smoking stop. He also helpfully informed us that the curios there were the best in Kenya and a steal. Other Half being a compulsive shopper made a beeline for the little thatched curio shop while I rushed to the washroom. These were surprisingly spotless and odour free and made me wince in shame when I thought about the state of public restrooms in India. Anyway, by the time I emerged from my adoration of the washrooms of Kenya, Other Half had made a detailed survey of the goods on display and  he informed me that though of excellent quality, they were exorbitant. So after a quick admiration of the multiple wooden tribal heads, skilfully carved animals made from horn, adorable little soapstone rhinos and elephants, we emerged into the sunshine to admire the beautiful Rift Valley that lay dozing in a blue haze in the early morning sun. A helpful Kenyan gentlemen who had accosted us at this point, pointed out Masai villages and schools in the distance. He also offered to click a few snaps of ours and when he continued to linger on without much purpose, I got this feeling that maybe he was looking for a tip or something. I get a little uncomfortable in such situations and so when a little local boy came selling ripe red plums and the Kenyan gentleman remarked , “Buy plum, help local economy” Other Half did so. The Kenyan gentleman, probably happy at having successfully boosted his country’s economy, now moved away, to our great relief and we both went and sat on the roadside parapet to admire the view in peace. 

A young Kenyan boy was also sitting on the parapet, next to me. He was probably about twelve or thirteen, plump with an oval head and looked for all the world like an African Laughing Buddha. We got talking and he told me his name was Anthony. He was a Kikuyu ( a major tribe of Kenya) and lived high up on the hill. He then asked me where I was from and when I answered 'India' , he nodded in comprehension . ‘Where in India?' he then asked me. Not very sure that he would be familiar with my small home town, I said ‘Calcutta.You know 'Calcutta'? Anthony was nonplussed: No did not know Calcutta. I offered helpfully, ‘You know, Calcutta... Bengal.... Rabindranath Tagore...?’ Anthony was by now well and truly lost. ‘Tagore’? No he did not know ‘Tagore’, but he did know ‘Salman Khan’!

There was really was not much I could say after this answer. Other Half was now chortling in amusement beside me. In fact I could hear his thoughts.... ‘Madam, Tagore’s from a century back, well and truly fossilised’! 

I am not dogmatic at all and can adapt without too much fuss to situations. So, if it was to be Salman Khan, then it would be Salman Khan; who was I to fight reality? At least we had an ambassador here in this little corner of Africa; if not the Poet, then why not the Khan? I asked Anthony which films of Salman he had seen and he said he had seen the one where Salman was a cop and his brother had picked up a quarrel with him. “Dabangg’ I announced happily. Although I was a diehard Salman hater, Dabangg was a film, which, for a change I had enjoyed thoroughly, seduced solely by its dialogues and the beautiful music. I asked Anthony if he had seen the sequel ‘Dabangg II’ but he said, ‘No. The CD was still not available in Kenya.’ The wistfulness in his voice made me feel sad. Had I known I would be meeting this little Salman fan , here in the heart of Africa, I would have definitely brought  a CD of Dabangg II to present to him. Here I had my IPad full to the brim with Tagore’s songs but I had not one song from Salman’s films, not even an album label. It felt like such an irony.

          We continued chatting and Anthony told us about his home, his school and his village. Jackson was now beckoning us back to the vehicle and it was time to go. As I said goodbye, Anthony waved at me and said, ‘One day, I will come to India, to Mumbai....” I smiled as I waved back at him. Please do, Anthony, please do. It’s a one fine country, of fine people like Rabindranath Tagore and Salman Khan. 

Of Tagore and Fair and Lovely!

         This blog’s theme is a done- to-death one, about the average Indian’s obsession with a 'white' complexion. Nothing new I know, for feminists, both real and virtual continue to rage on this topic on all available media including of course the internet . I am not really a feminist, being too laid back (read lazy), but I am a Tagore fan (..I can hear the “there she goes again...”) and the poet had addressed this issue many, many years ago when this obsession with ‘white’ skin had perhaps been much more acute than it is today. And to tell you the truth, this obsession with a ‘white skin’ is not restricted only to the colour of a woman's skin. Men also suffer much discrimination in this matter especially while being exhibited in the marriage market. But somehow no one really talks about them being discriminated against (the issue's not attention grabbing enough when it involves the male, I guess) and so these poor chaps suffer silently,  rubbing that obnoxious ‘Fair and Handsome’ on their faces night and day and hoping against hope that the mirror will soon tell them that their skin has turned a shade fairer.. ! 

            Now back to Tagore. In the his typical style, the poet addresses the issue in a rather abstruse way. The poem’s  called ‘Krishnokoli Ami Tarei Boli” or “I call her Krishnokoli” . Tagore talks about this dark-skinned, probably Santhal village girl he has seen at a paddy field on a rainy evening, somewhere in the heart of rural Bengal. He tells of how he is captivated by the girl's beauty , this girl, who because she is dark, is by default considered ‘not beautiful’ and maybe even ugly. He tells us how, in spite of what conventional wisdom dictates, he finds her to be exquisitely beautiful, her beauty  easily transcending the colour of her skin to come reside in her dark ‘gazelle’ eyes. The girl is unknown to him; but mesmerised by her dark beauty he names her ‘Krishnokoli’ which in Bangla or for that matter even in Hindi and Sanskrit means a dark coloured flower or bud. His metaphorical comparison of this Krishnokoli's beauty with the beauty of a darkening monsoon dusk is haunting and is perhaps the l' essence of the poem.

This work sometimes reminds me of the ‘Solitary Reaper’ for the situations are rather similar in both the poems, that of wandering poets chancing upon rustic village women working in the fields and being mesmerised by their beauty , be it the beauty of their physical form or that of their voice and song..!

         I’ve translated the verse for you  and though it cannot really the capture the wonder of the original, it will give you an idea of the thoughts of the poet.

            And just as a little afterthought, I’ll dedicate this post to the two prominent Krishnokoli’s in my life: the gazelle-eyed Deccan Queen, hauntingly beautiful with an irrepressible zest for life and the bass-voiced Other Half, tall, steadfast and handsome, the two living, breathing examples in my life that the colour of our skin is just that, a colour caused by this organic compound called melanin, of which some have more and some have less and it has got nothing, absolutely nothing to do with our worth as human beings.  

Hope you like the poem. Do let me know.

I call her Krishnokoli - she whom the village folks call ‘Dark’!

On a cloud laden day, at the field I saw

This dark girl’s gazelle eyes, dark.

Her veil, it trailed at her feet,
Her braid, it rolled over her back...

Dark? Well, dark she may be

But only her gazelle-dark eye did I see.    

Gazing at the darkening clouds, two dark cows lowed  

This dark girl, from her hut, rushed out, full of woe

Listening to the thundering clouds,

She glanced at the sky, raising her dark brows....

Dark? Well dark she may be, but only her gazelle-dark eye did I see.

The Eastern wind came rushing, making the paddy sway

Standing at that field, it was just me and none else that day!

Her glance, did it fall on me or did it not

Only I know and knows this girl dark.

Dark?  Well dark she may be, but only her gazelle dark eye did I see

And thus like the dark rain clouds
That gather on a sweltering summer day....

And thus like the dark rain shadows,
That draw over the forest at the end of May.......

And thus like those sudden gusts of joy,
That fill the heart on a dark Shravan night...... 

Dark??  Well, dark she may be,
But only her gazelle-dark eyes can I see!

I call her Krishnokoli – don’t really care what the others say...

Saw her at Moynapara, on the field that day:

A dark girl who had not veiled her face.....
A dark girl who had had no time to feel shy.......

Dark? Very well, dark she may be,

But only her gazelle-dark eyes do I see !

কৃষ্ণকলি আমি তারেই বলি,   কালো তারে বলে গাঁয়ের লোক।
মেঘলা দিনে দেখেছিলেম মাঠে   কালো মেঘের কালো হরিণ-চোখ।
ঘোমটা মাথায় ছিল না তার মোটে,   মুক্তবেণী পিঠের 'পরে লোটে।
কালো? তা সে যতই কালো হোক,   দেখেছি তার কালো হরিণ-চোখ।
    
ঘন মেঘে আঁধার হল দেখে   ডাকতেছিল শ্যামল দুটি গাই,
শ্যামা মেয়ে ব্যস্ত ব্যাকুল পদে   কুটির হতে ত্রস্ত এল তাই।
আকাশ-পানে হানি যুগল ভুরু   শুনলে বারেক মেঘের গুরুগুরু।
কালো? তা সে যতই কালো হোক,   দেখেছি তার কালো হরিণ-চোখ।
    
পূবে বাতাস এল হঠাৎ ধেয়ে,   ধানের ক্ষেতে খেলিয়ে গেল ঢেউ।
আলের ধারে দাঁড়িয়েছিলেম একা,   মাঠের মাঝে আর ছিল না কেউ।
আমার পানে দেখলে কি না চেয়ে   আমি জানি আর জানে সেই মেয়ে।
কালো? তা সে যতই কালো হোক,   দেখেছি তার কালো হরিণ-চোখ।
    
এমনি করে কালো কাজল মেঘ   জ্যৈষ্ঠ মাসে আসে ঈশান কোণে।
এমনি করে কালো কোমল ছায়া   আষাঢ় মাসে নামে তমাল-বনে।
এমনি করে শ্রাবণ-রজনীতে   হঠাৎ খুশি ঘনিয়ে আসে চিতে।
কালো? তা সে যতই কালো হোক,   দেখেছি তার কালো হরিণ-চোখ।
    
কৃষ্ণকলি আমি তারেই বলি,   আর যা বলে বলুক অন্য লোক।
দেখেছিলেম ময়নাপাড়ার মাঠে   কালো মেয়ের কালো হরিণ-চোখ।
মাথার 'পরে দেয় নি তুলে বাস,   লজ্জা পাবার পায় নি অবকাশ।
কালো? তা সে যতই কালো হোক,   দেখেছি তার কালো হরিণ-চোখ॥