Le Troisième

April 2, 2010

Dear MA,

How are you?!?

I have not seen you live for one month and eighteen days!

Live?...lol…as in person, I go through your pictures though…..lol….hahahah….you get confused with ‘lol’....’laughing out loud’ MA!

I know: it is not the longest I have not seen you. We have been apart longer. Nevertheless, yes, like previously, we do not have the luxury to hop onto a bus and come up to Dhaka or Chittagong to meet each other.

Therefore: MA how is it going? The last time we talked you are saying that you are having daily two hourly black outs and water shortages and the summer is just starting!

Oh my! I forgot it would be Pohela Boisakh soon!

Who is going to buy you that red saree MA? Moreover, FA the Punjabi? And Rashna a dress?

Are you going to make Panta-vaat? The cheater’s one: by putting the freshly boiled rice onto cold water? Are you going to bring out the last Fried Beef from the freezer? And fry up those prawns and Hilsha?

Will RB send those packets from Vikrampoor Sweets, filled with the terracotta-red, glossy, syrupy-sweet globes of Lal-mohan? Is Boro Ammu going to send those famous mixed platters of Vortas and Vaajis? Will Choti go around kick up her old heels around in red and white sarees, with feet painted Vermillion with Alta, heavily ringing those silver anklets?

Will Dhanmonndi Road# 1 be filled, jam-packed to the hilt with all those rickshaws, themselves piled high with all the people? Loudly blowing the whistles? Wearing all the colorful visors? Faces painted bright with Alpona.  Girls with arms heavy with red bangles….I miss that tingling noise…bright with Henna? .Guys resplendent in just their attitude?

Every corner will have their own band of musicians crooning out songs from Lalon, Tagore, and Nazrul! Deep baritone recitals of maudlin poems! Speeches from the local politicians!

Everyone will be out MA! Everyone! Eyes and teeth sparkling with glee. Bodies sweating, trembling as if on ecstasy! Everyone will be doing the jig to the strange, ancient, tribal tune! Out to celebrate the New Year, bring in the tides of good times, wrecking all the bads and the olds out of their system.

Oh! Gaaawwwwed!! MA!! Why did you say I am better off here?

As I write this, it just shows how I am better off. Does not it?

Shuvo Nobo Borsho MA! Happy Bangla New Year! Hope it goes better than mine!

Love,

A

Deuxième Fois

March 2010

Dear MA,

How are you doing?

It is such a simple question: with a similarly knotty answer. Yet, it is thrown at me with such ease.

As if I am expected to be always all right. May be I should be well. May be I am anticipated to be miserable (in hell down under)?

As if they really do care. My pessimist persona says that they do not: I answer back with a non-committal shrug! My optimistic comrade says they do: I smile my brightest, my happiest. Actually MA I am so unwell! 
Listen to me please!

MA! I did try in the not-so-distant past! Yes! It was disappointingly disastrous but was it my fault entirely? Did you not support me when I took my decisions? Did I not choose an option in life which you wholeheartedly recommended? I know at the end of the day who are you take blame for my errors.

MA! I do try in my prospective present! I bite my lips and hike against the bitter wind; against the needling rain; against the razor-sharp rays of sun; against the jabs of perfect strangers. I know what sacrifices MA you are making to make 'it' possible for me.
MA!  I will try my level best in my unsighted future! I do not know what it holds for me.
MA! It is so tough! Yes I know it had been tougher previously and I had been going tougher. But MA! It is not like before…I believe I am so familiar with things not going smoothly in my life that when I have things going easier, I become: awkwardly afraid…distant from the rosy reality…trying hard to hunt for a pair of plain spectacles to look at life.

MA! I am such an infantile moron! I can account for like around 99% of melodrama of the world.

I break down and cry, face tearing into silent screams of anguish, even after a lively day with new-found friends.

I become numb with pain even after such mentally-stimulating sessions where I was bursting with my long-lost enthusiasm. What if I turn into another disappointment! Again!

I burst into tears, fear clinging to my whole being. Even after spending the day with such wonderful and thoughtful people like R and B, who embraced me with wide open arms, giving all their own for a Satan like myself.

MA! What should I do?

The other day, as I was waiting at the main gate, I saw a father and a toddler walking past me. At first, the boy and the man was walking alongside. Then with the fervor of a puppy, the toddler ran helter-skelter ahead. The father followed slowly, his maturity pronounced in his gait. He knew what he would find soon and took it up in his arms: his son...it was so cute…lying spread-eagled on the green, tired from his miscalculated run. They rested for a while and he let go of the kid: he started running again to and fro. But this time around, the child did not run out of kilter. He waddled his adorable fat butt to short expanses, each time returning back to the father: either to hug the man’s legs or for a reassuring hug.

MA: it reminded me of you.

I have gone awry so many times. But each time I went off beam, you fetched me, ignoring the strong bars of prison I was incarcerated in; fighting tooth and nails. And then protectively clung to me stronger than earlier.

Each time, you brought me to my senses; forcing me to stand up to my responsibilities…not just to you, but also, MA, to my own self.

Each time you literally gave me the wings to fly to a brighter horizon, a greener pasture, to a better nature.

Each time MA, you sang to me stronger songs of hope, to dance to. Wrote me poems, each more brilliant than the last one, to rhyme my life to. Painted me canvasses, each more glorious than before.

Each time you sat on the jai-namaz, exhausted your self to sickness with long hours, reciting stronger prayers solely for me.

Each time: impervious to the simple scarcities, demeaning externalities and mortifying vagaries of life.

Now, MA, I know you have tried the hardest, your best, and your fullest. But, I am ending up in such a loss. I know it is so selfish. It is not that I want an answer, MA…it is just so unexplainably excruciating.

I guess I am just cursed…

Love,

A

P.S.: I hope you are doing great along with FA and SA.

La Première Note

Dear MA,

I hope you are doing well, although I know it is impossible for you now not to miss me and to be in an agonizing hell for me. Just think how self-centered I am that I have assumed that you will do just that; not a single word of concern about you or FA and SA.

Right now: the Village premise is lively with the guttural, gut-busting, laughter from Friday-night beer-sluggers, interrupted with incoherent songs, no traces of tune or lyrics. I guess that is the universal lingo of drunkards, lost to the world; solely-found amongst fellow inebriates. 

I fancy the liberty to join them. Casually sundressed in vibrant tye-dyes, batiks and chickons; esperadilled or barefooted;   wanton-eyed; lipped with cherry-hued cupid bows; wild hair asking for the touch of strong masculine fingers. Oh My! The Queen of the Damned! 

But there I stood, staring, wistfully, a Rapunzel at the 3^rd floor window, with 4 bug-like, bulging eyes, unwashed and sweaty wisps hiding my over-tanned, patchy, scarred face.

The rain-washed concrete walkways, the sand-and-pebbled quads, the freshly-tilled soil, the baby ferns staring up with contemptible fish-eyes.  The clicking and thundering footfalls blowing fists at the bruised ego.

Did I just admit that? Damn well I did! I have so many complaints!

Why did I have to leave MA? So that I can have a new beginning? Why could not I have it back home, amongst you? What if I did not want one? Answer me!

Tell me:

What do I feel when I see a 20 year old crying at the plane window as she returns to Sydney from a 6 month trip to India? Should not I be the one with eyes brimful? No! I was not the lucky one: I sat, perplexed, angry, and naive.

How am I supposed to appease Aladdin, a Libyan security guard at 6.00am in the morning, after I offended him by saying he looks like a white Caucasian Australian?

How do I get back to the obnoxious bus-driver shouting, ‘Ain’t you gettin the message!’, after I just fell down on the bus steps, both hands filled with shopping. I just chuckled, fatality taking over my anger.

What am I supposed to do when a Bangali point-blank refused my pleasant advance, with a strict ‘NA!’. Not a ‘No’ or ‘Hi’ even!

How am I suppose to hold my temper when the chauvinistic, Iranian PHD student refuses to acknowledge my presence; bitter of the interest I receive because of my chirpy participation (no modesty please) in group work?

I am…I feel…I think. Uprooted. Left lost. Too busy even to feel a morsel of misery. Without a friend. Involuntarily ignored. Without an existence...a meaningful one. …I am simply floating around, against the up-heaving avid surge of my gloomy heart; along the tide of ever-vigilant mind.

I know MA: you do not have any answers, with the very best of intentions for me, in every drop of your own existence since you conceived me.

It’s all right. I will be fine but not enough to get up and Hoover my room. Let’s just save it for another day, shall we?

Love,

A