Theme for a dream

I had a dream about you the other night. Not the you you but a calm and sorted forty year old man. I dreamt that you finally started living in the mountains. That you stay in a place just a few hours drive from Darjeeling.

You were living in a purple coloured wooden house. I know you are smiling and thinking, why purple? Well, purple stands out against the lush green of the trees as well as the murky brown of the forest grounds. Purple because it is so distinguishable from the grey and white roads that lead you to the house. Purple perhaps, because it stands for fame and success- symbolic. It is a dream after all.

The house was warm and nice,on the very drafty day that I went to visit you, perhaps to stay. I don't remember. The windows were neatly curtained with clean white cloths. You were sitting near a table that was littered with equipments. Surely you were busy when you got up to answer my knock.

As the initial bewilderment settled, we both felt the need for some coffee to accompany our conversations. You got up and I followed you to the kitchen. You were making coffee. I smiled to myself, as this was so unusual. I generally get dumped with the kitchen duties at a friend's place even when I am guest there.

But, there you were, standing in your kitchen, in the house on the mountains, stirring two sugar free black coffees- and I always loved to see you cook, even when it is just coffee. You looked up and smiled, as if you read my mind.

We walked up to the verandah overlooking the valley. We remained silent until it started to rain.

…

It rained in Kolkata. I was just an old woman, standing by the window, watching the rain, while sipping my hot coffee. In my other hand there was a half closed letter from a swashbuckling yound artist about his new house in the mountains, where I could afford a visit only in my dreams.

Perhaps that was a dream and this is a letter. Or may be that was the letter I dreamt of. A letter, a dream… I really don't know. You see, I hate explaining things.

This, here, now...

We should just talk

Like everybody does

Talk with words that

Don't mean anything beyond

The letter, the symbols, the black

You should just talk

About the weather, the sky,

About politics may be

Like everybody does

Not comment, not think,

Not feel, especially not feel

Let's just nod, repeat what we here

Remain pseudo in our perspective

No perception of our own

No observation, no conscience

Let's just talk of those things

And not mean anything, nothing

Beyond what is accepted and expected

Of you and me, when you and me are

Just a number in a long list

A statistic of a survival or death

Same difference

Photo Courtesy: Bitan Basu

Being in love, can feel like this.

Hello dearie,

Well I am in love with cooking. Cooking relaxes me. Really! Whenever I am under a lot of stress: like I have to submit a paper or make a presentation or do something remotely performatory, I need to cook. For me, cooking is not a performance, I don’t do it to impress anybody or please anybody. I just cook. It comes naturally to me.

Like all other cooking enthusiast I hunt down recipes from the internet. Sometimes I even buy unknown ingredients and figure out the recipes around them. But I never keep strictly keep to the given recipe. I always change, innovate and improvise. This is the part, I like most.

This, I find familiar to Severus Snape and his awe-inspiring potion making skills. The way he introduces first years to their first potions class gives away his love for the subject.

Snape finished calling the names and looked up at the class. [...] "You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making," he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word—like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even stopper death— if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach." (Rowling 1997)

But in the sixth book of Harry Potter series, Snape’s true proficiency for brewing positions and his expertise in understanding the craft was revealed when Harry found Snape’s the old potion text book.

The whole book is littered with footnotes, note to self, instructions and inscriptions. He excelled at not by following blindly but by innovation and improvisation. Bullied and persecuted in his childhood and youth, Snape took refuge into his text book. Slowly, consequently, he fell in love with “the subtle science and exact art of potion-making” And that is exactly what you do when you don’t just love something but fall in love with it.

When you love something or someone, you want things to be perfect, normative. A recipe or a relationship: You hunt down the ingredients and follow the rules and hope (beyond hope?) that everything goes picture perfect— just the way you expect it of everybody and just the way everybody would expect it of you.

But when you are in love with something or someone, you don’t need to look into formulas, methods or instructions: you dare to tread beyond these limitations, these reasons. You just breathe and feel, let your hair down and sync in with the rhythm of desire. It will guide you to unlearn what it expected of you, it will train you to unapologetically take risk and create something extraordinary. When you are in love, you no more look for picture perfect but just feel the urge to make best of what you already have.

That is exactly what I do with cooking. I'm in love: I promise I can make something unique and beautiful with whatever you can spare for me.

Love,

Stotropama.

Spark is Yours, Truely

There is a spark of madness in everybody: you can either choose to harness it or nip it in the bud. I would always choose to harness it in every individual because therein lies the pure and creative self of each human being. 

This spark of madness evokes us, makes us rebel, helps us to think beyond what is given and held as true. Because true is fabricated and faith is conditioned. This spark of madness keeps us away from corrupt, hypocritical and discriminatory vested interests. 

But there is too much darkness and it is but only a spark. Hold it dear, keep it kindled - because you'll be tested and told how comfortable it is to lose it, how freeing is fitting in. I can promise you it is not comfortable or conclusive. It comes at a price of constant self-explorations. You will be told that you are confused. That you are simply afraid to settles in cause you are afraid of a long, sustained happiness. But, believe me, there is no such thing. So don't cut yourself to fit the give square hole: rebel, retain the spark within. And when enough people will be able to save their light: together we can light the beacon of hope, solidarity and universal acceptance. It is discursive, not instructive.

সংগোপন

১

পরে থাকা সিগারেটের স্মৃতি
ঠোঁটে লাগতেই জ্বলে উঠলো
ধোঁওয়ারা উথালি পাথালি হাওয়ায়
ছড়িয়ে ছিটিয়ে গেলো
যে যার মতো
বুকে বন্ধ আগুন বলল
শান্ত হও, গড়তে শেখো
এখনো………

২

তোমার ছোঁয়া পুড়ছে আমার 
শরীর জুড়ে
চলছে মানুষ, বলছে
কথা ব্যাঙ্গ করে
এসব জেনে, সব ই বুঝে, হাত ধরেছি
বিষাদজয়ী হবই স্বপ্ন পূরণ করে

৩

সুস্থ সবল বন্ধ আগল
সংগোপন আর স্মৃতি
তোমার সঙ্গে ছুটছে দেখ
সময় শেষের ভীতি
রুগ্ন এমন গন্ধ কোমল
শ্বাস-প্রশ্বাসে বিষ
অর্পণ আর প্রত্যাখ্যান
দ্বন্দ অহর্নিশ