Poetry 2016 Longlist, Amit Shankar Saha

Unwakefulness

My body a boat
Filled with holes of tiredness
Sinks deep into sleep

Your memory a cargo
Lies on the sea bed -
A sunken treasure it seems

The unbecoming
Of ever falling asleep -
The brine of the sea

All the mermaids gather there
To mourn and to weep
For what I lost in my dreams

Short Story 2015, Featured Writers, Amit Shankar Saha

Love and Hate

She came out on the balcony to see the rainbow: with all its colours, on the eastern sky, like a bridge, bridging the north with the south. Shining. Evanescent. Colourful. The colours fading into one another producing hues and shades on the dull blue canvas. And far away she knew it was raining for she could see the dark clouds hovering in the distance. It must be still raining there, she thought. Pouring, showering, drenching; birds, trees, trains. Spurting from the dust, jutting from the railings, splashing on the sides, submerging the tracks and ... She knew; she felt. She wondered why rainbows are not of any other shape. Why are they shaped like bridges? She thought she knew why. Because they bridge north with the south. She smiled. She wanted to laugh; laugh loudly so that the innumerable pairs of ears beyond the great arch might hear her. But she knew she can’t. So she smiled in ecstasy. Seeing her smile the children came out of the folds of her sari with their faces still in a conundrum. They began to stare at the beautiful spectacle. A bridge from north to south. And he was coming from the north.

Presently the little girl gave a shout, VIBGYOR. And her brother started saying aloud Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red. red, red, red, red, the red colour seem to echo in the mother’s ears. She felt it was a strange colour; most unlike any other colour. It was a living colour as well as a deadly colour. The colour of life as well as death. And she knew it was the colour of the setting sun. Today also, like any other day, she won’t see the sun at dusk. In this flat in the ghetto the western side never had a horizon. It only has neighbours. So for ten years she didn’t see the sun set. It wasn’t the sun did not set all these years but for her the sun only rose. Sometimes in the rain.

But the children were still more unfortunate. When she was in the north, everyday she saw the sun set. Sometimes in the rain. But alas! The children had never seen the setting sun. The only time they saw a tinge of red in the sky was when there was a rainbow. So they began to love the rainbow dearly. Whenever there was a rainbow they used to rush to look at it with puzzled expressions on their faces. They waited for the rainbow. Days on end. Sometimes on bright, sunny days they used to rush to the balcony and stare at the sky and ask, will we get a rainbow today mom? And the mother used to answer, if it rains. So they began to love the rains too. But the rains were a bugger. It betrayed the children. It hurt the children. Now and again; for not all rainy days the rainbow came out. The mother grew worried when it rained and rained for days and days without the rainbow. And always, before the internecine rains could cause any harm, the rainbow came out. The children were joyous; the mother was happy; the rainbow becalmed all their sufferings, pain and anxiety for the time being. The rainbow was so beautiful, so colourful. The red colour contrasting with the blue of the sky. But the mother knew that their happiness was as fleeting as the rainbow. So gradually, unknowingly she became afraid of the rains. Whether it drizzled, showered or poured her heart sank heavily in her bosom. And the children seeing the mixed expression of love and hate on her face had their faces riddled with confusion. They knew not that their mother feared the rains, except when it rained at night and when it rained with a rainbow.

The mother and the children stared at the rainbow until it grew dark and the rainbow faded into the azure. Then she ushered her children into the room from the balcony. They had today’s fill. She hoped they will remain glad all through their maternal uncle’s visit. She prayed again that anxiety might not overcome their gaiety in the coming days. The coming days were important for her. She had waited for it for ten long years. For ten long years everyday she waited for these days and now when these days were so close she grew nervous. It seemed that these days have come too early. It could have waited a little longer. She could have prepared herself. Prepared her home. Prepared what she had been preparing these ten long years. Still after ten years of restlessness she wants a little more time. Till her husband gets a good promotion or till they get into a good house or till they own a lot of things they had planned to own or till her children are grown up and established or ... But now the days were there. The days after which she was running so long that now she can’t run away from them.

She went to the kitchen to prepare food for the man of the house. The ushered-in children sat on the bed with their books and copies to do their homework. The father will be home soon.

It was not long when the doorbell rang and entered a surly, burly figure. A figure whom the children had got accustomed to looking at this hour of the day. The man sat where he was accustomed to sit. Very soon his tea will arrive which he will slurp happily. The children feigned to be busy with their homework. They loved their father dearly but they also knew that their father so nonchalant towards them that it was akin to hatred. So they need not and should not disturb him.
After some time the tea arrived with their mother. They saw everything with their heads in their books and copies and their eyes slanting away. The father sipping tea. The mother standing with the tray in hand and watching the man of the house with contempt. When is he coming? the man asked earnestly. The train is due to arrive at eight, she answered blankly.

But it is surely to be late by an hour or so.
Yes.
Is the room okay? I mean have you cleared all their things and locked the cupboards, he asked staring at the children from his cup.
Yes; again was her short reply.
And, and the new bed-sheet.
Yes.
He must feel comfortable. You must look to it. He is coming after such a long time. He must not feel any discomfort while staying here. He is our guest. And the children must also behave well.
Yes.

She went to the kitchen with the empty cup and saucer. He got up and went to the basin to wash himself. He came back with a towel on his shoulder and reseated himself on his chair. The wife hated him because of, among other things, this habit of not himself before taking tea. But the children loved him all because of his bad habits. After taking the hot tea he seemed to cool down a bit because of the wash. And that was the time the children thought when he became a little indulgent with them and their work.

The boy seizing the opportunity jumped down from the bed and came beside his father. He asked him to explain a problem in arithmetic. The father obliged and explained it to him as if he was lecturing a class of hundred students. The boy shook his head even though he could not make out anything of the explanation. But it wasn’t that he did not understand the problem for he had already solved it; it was just to talk to his father. When he returned from his endeavour the younger one jumped down from the bed with a book in hand. She opened the book on a certain page and gave it to her father. Then she began to recite from memory the poem. The father stopped the recitation mid-way and said, Darling ask your brother. He’ll hear it. She returned to the bed with her book. That was probably the end of their conversation with their father for the day. They went on doing their work either in pretence or in reality. Laboriously. While the father lighted a cigarette and began to go through the morning newspaper. It was quite warm outside but the children could feel their insides getting colder and colder. The children would then start shivering momentarily in periodic intervals, sometimes long and sometimes short. And each time they shivered the children used to turn their faces hither and thither like fawns and make sure that no one noticed them. Then they would stare at each other and wait for another round of fits to come. This went on and time passed. After eight O’ clock they had their day’s last meal. By nine they were in bed and by ten they were fast asleep. Still there was no sign of their uncle. Meanwhile the train from north Bengal, the Darjeeling Express, was three and a half hour late. So when it reached Howrah it was almost half past eleven. From the first class compartment stepped down, among others, a man in traditional Bengali dress. He called a coolie.  The coolie took his suitcase outside the station and arranged a cab for him. The driver seeing a well-dressed Bengali “bhadrolok” asked to be paid fifty rupees extra. When the coolie assured him that the driver was charging reasonably he yielded. It was well towards midnight when his taxi was going smoothly over the Vidyasagar Setu that his thoughts veered again and again towards his sister. He began to think of her ten years ago. How they used to run down the declivity of their tea garden. How they used to play hide-and-seek among the bushy trees. How they used to wait for the snowfall. How they used to run after the toy trains. How they used to see the sun rising from the Tiger Hill. And how they used to see the sun set in the western horizon with a red glare. And before she realised that he was old enough to fall in love and run away with the no-Bengali tea estate manager of their firm, she was gone. He never forgave her for that. These thoughts began to make inroads into his mind. He wanted to just stare at the road, slipping past the tyres of the cab but hat also tormented him. He felt that as the car sped he was getting nearer and nearer, faster and faster to something unpleasant. It was getting unbearable. He began to hate his sister more and more. His pleasure trip was becoming from unpleasureable to displeasureable. He wanted to turn back. And he decides that he won’t stay for more than a day in his sister’s house. So when he knocked on the door quite past midnight and his sister opened the door the first thing he said was, I paid rupees fifty extra for the taxi.

The night was slumbering. so they all went to sleep. Some minds were occupied in thoughts and some in dreams. But outside the wind wasn’t slumbering, the moon wasn’t slumbering, the stars weren’t slumbering. The earth was awake that night. Had anyone of them opened their sleepy eyes that night they would have realised that they were the only ones sleeping that night. And dreaming. Outside there was a conspiracy. In their bed chamber air was filling in thick. Until it was so dense that it felt like liquid. So they all opened their mouth and gulped in mouthfuls. The air going in their lungs like thick treacle. It seemed that they would suffocate and die but they lived. Lived through the night as if they knew about it all. As if they have been prepared. Preparing themselves for ten years. Ten long years. Even the children were aware. It seemed.

So they all slumbered unaware of the ticking clock until the wind which has raved all night restlessly, sleeplessly banged a window pane and the house was awake. All were awake, at once. The children got up and stared at each other fearing another bout of fits. The father and the mother beside them woke up in love and hate. And in that other room the uncle who arrived last night was also awaken by the noise. Suddenly they were all awake and all aware that they were all awake. It seemed the day dawned suddenly without the twilight. It seemed the other moment it was night and the very next moment it was day. Suddenly.

The children already knew that the uncle must have arrived but still while brushing their teeth they asked their mother, Has uncle arrived, mom? Was the train late? Why didn’t you wake us up? At what time did he come? How long will he stay? Is he very rich? Was he happy? And the mother replied sometimes with certainty and sometimes doubtfully; sometimes with a yes and sometimes with a no; sometimes she advised them and sometimes she kept quite; sometimes she nodded her head and sometimes she shook her head.

It was not long when they met their uncle. He was most unlike the young man they had expected to see. He was no more the same youth whose picture they had seen in their mother’s family photograph. The boyish cheerfulness of his face was gone; instead a grave expression was on his face. Now he can only be cheerful when he wishes to be so. They could not read his face clearly. Was he a friend or foe? They could not make out. So they put aside all their conjectures. They were ready to let time and actions guide their feelings.

The uncle, on first impression appeared cheerful with them. He addressed them by their first names. He caressed them with genuine warmth. He behaved with them as if he was meeting with them after a long time and not exactly for the first time. But the children found that their uncle was quite cold with their mother. He was warm with their father, so why coldness with the only other remaining member of their family? They reserved their opinion about him for the time being. They won’t haste. They wanted to know what ten years’ separation from his sister has cooked in his heart and mind. Was it love or hate? Ten years is a long time and anything that has been cooked in his heart and mind for all those time is sure to decide the future, far away. Now they just waited for the immediate future.
At breakfast their uncle was most animated. His tintinabulating voice aroused their awe. He talked about anything under the sun. He talked with their father jovially, cheerily and sometimes seriously. He amused them with his knowledge, with his etiquette, with his mannerisms, with his facial acrobatics, with his gung-ho spirit. But the children felt a pin-prick in all their amusements. They saw their mother; her face expressing the pain of torture. She was uncomfortable; she was bottled up; she was suffocating. It seemed that all night she had just breathed in and not breathed out. They pitied their mother But they knew not why she was in such a poor state when others were enjoying themselves.

After breakfast the mother went into the kitchen for she had much work to do. She was happy to be away. The children were happy that alone in the kitchen she might feel a little better. The father would stay in that dining-room-cum-drawing-room. With their uncle. And possibly the children would also stay there. It was a Sunday. So the four of them sat in the room and conversed. Every word of their conversation was distinctly heard in the kitchen. And the mother was aware that the father would try his best to send the children away from his sight. He could not tolerate them. But the uncle wanted them in there. She was glad for that. All through the day, till the afternoon, the struggle of the farther would continue. And neither the children nor the uncle would know the strife going on. The mother would know. She would loathe her husband for that. Soon she found the children running into the bedroom, now to get the newspaper, now to get their father’s spectacles, and now for something else. They always ran for their errands at a single command from their father. They loved their father. How can they disobey him? They ran in pairs. Never separating from each other. They were like Siamese twins. They were so close to each other. They shared something common between themselves - if not physically an organ or something then certainly something psychological. Either they had a common id or a common ego or they might have a common super-ego. There wasn’t anything to show that one of them was dominant over the other. They were both, as if, finely tuned to play the same note. The mother saw it and liked it. She was also once so close to her brother. The father also saw it but did not like it. He felt their closeness too sticky. But what can he do? So he remained indifferent towards them. And his wife did not approve of his attitude. So the children ran here and there pleasing their father. The mother getting annoyed every time they were on the run. But every time they returned from their errand their uncle had new things to tell them about. They were eager to hear. Hear how their mother spent her childhood with her brother.

The uncle said, We used to run down the declivity of the tea-garden and there used to be those bushes behind which we used to hide while playing hide-and-seek.
The father ordered them to go and confirm whether it was true or not. They rushed to their mother. Is it true, mom, is it true? The mother answered, yes, in agony. And then.

We used to wait for the snow fall so longingly and sometimes in the snow we used to run after the toy train and always beating it in our run.
Again they were rushed to the kitchen for confirmation. And each time they met the eyes of their mother they found her in extreme agony. Gradually they were figuring out the ploy. And then.

We used to see the sun rising from the Tiger Hill. Oh! What a sight it is! And again it agonised the mother. She prayed to god that the father won’t send the children again to her to increase her agony. But she knew he would. He was as stupid, senseless and stubborn as a dotard. Why had she married him? Infatuation, and nothing else. What else can it be? She was enamoured by his masculinity. His soul had forever remained a far country for her. Unapproached. Unexamined. Unexplored. He was now just a big dildo for her. She realised that back then her heart did not reason. But it was not so now. All was changed. She no longer loved him. She could not love him. Since she could not love him, she hated him. And again.
We used to see the sun set with its red glare.

They went to the mother and asked, Did you see the sun set with a red glare? And this they saw that their mother’s eyes were red. They knew she was repressing something. It might be tears. Yes. Tears. It seemed that just then it was going to burst out in rains. Drizzling. Showering. Pouring. The mother got afraid. She turned aside. She won’t speak. For fear. With the pointed end of the kitchen knife she carved on the table YES. The children saw and knew. They knew it was their uncle who was making their mother suffer. Consciously. They began to hate him. Hate him to the core. They realised that everything he said was directed at their mother. To tease her. To make her suffer. Reminiscences which will wound her. Their uncle was sinister. He hated their mother and they hated him.
The lunch was a light affair. There was no tension, struggle or strife nor was the air as thick as liquid. It was because all of them were of anything but eating. The father was tired of ordering, the uncle was tired of recalling the past, the mother was tired of hearing about her past and the children were tired of running for errands. But they were all aware; all five of them, that what they had been doing so long in the hiding, they will have to do it in direct confrontation. After lunch when they would all be together and resting, the tension would be at its height. And it might not last long before...
They were all bound together by love. But their love for each other was like lassoes and lariats - the noose of which was hate. If they loved too much the noose might get tighter round the throat. They all knew, even the little ones, that love has a potency to give birth but hate has a greater potency to cause death.

Immediately after lunch the uncle took out a photograph from his suitcase and also opened the floodgates of confrontation. It was an old, black and white, sepia-tint photograph. It showed a tall monument beneath which stood a boy and a girl, arm in arm. The boy and girl were not much older than the brother and sister we know about as children. The boy and girl were also brother and sister. A more than ten years old photograph. The uncle showed it to the children. Even before they recognised the tall monument as the Shahid Minar, they recognised that the boy and girl were their uncle and mother respectively. Standing below the towering architecture. Smiling. At the camera. And now at them. Show it to your mother, the uncle said. But the children would not yield to his ploy any more. They refused. The father was angry. The uncle himself handed the photograph to their mother. She did not want to take it. He forced her. She took it and folded her arms. He won’t take it back from her until the photograph has done its work. She was to suffer, he decided. The children’s eyes were full of hate for their uncle. And the father in turn began to them even more. And the mother’s hate grew more for her husband when she found how, along with her, her children also suffered. 

It was a whirlpool. A vortex of love and hate. Everyone knew that they were sinking. All. Still they were trying to hold on to others either in their last ditch attempt to get refuge or to make sure that along with them the others also sink. It was both a struggle against each other and a struggle against struggle. A situation where salvation was annihilation and annihilation was salvation. They had all painted themselves into a single corner. Whose mistake was it?

They all knew. They all knew enough. They all knew enough to know that they did not know.
The uncle spoke, That’s the Octolorney Monument. And that’s me and your mother. What do you about the monument?
It’s now called the Shahid Minar, replied the little ones.
And what else?
They kept quiet. They knew no more. The father was piqued, even though he knew nothing more about it. He shouted, Idiots.
The uncle intervened in the crisis. But the mother spoke first, Don’t ever you speak like that to my children. Behaving as if you know a lot.
Then the uncle, just to make his sister worse, reproduced the exact words that they had heard just after they had got themselves photographed under the monument, on their first visit to Calcutta.
The guide spoke, It is sometimes called “Kolkata ka debota” (The presiding deity of Calcutta). It has a very peculiar architectural style. Its base is modelled in Egyptian style. Its column is Syrian. And its dome is made in Turkish style.

The children and their father heard these facts for the first time. The children hated their uncle still more for showing off his vast oeuvre of knowledge. They made faces at him. The father was impressed by the uncle. And he hated the children for hating their uncle. Only the mother knew about these facts. The familiar words wrung her being. It seemed that someone was thrusting his hand in her chest and pulling out her heart. How happy she was in those days. In her childhood. Until. She threw down the photograph on the bed. The father winced. The children knew that their uncle was destroying their mother. At present in their family the uncle was like a fifth quarter - an intruder. An impostor. An unwanted guest. The mother wished that her brother would forgive her. She loved her brother dearly. But she knew not that while all these years she was storing up love for her brother, her brother was storing up hate for her. He was adamant to remain an intruder. An impostor. An unwanted guest.

The children wanted to know more about one thing that fascinated them. The setting of the sun with a red glare. But they feared that it would hurt their mother. So they kept quiet. They weren’t surprised when, despite their fears, the subject was taken up by none other than their uncle. They looked at their mother. She was prepared. They were a little relieved.

How often do you’ll see the setting sun? The setting of the sun with a red glare. Just as we used to see in those days, asked the uncle.
Often, retorted the husband.
Never, countered the wife.
Why, rejoined the uncle.

You know, dear. Now don’t punish me. Have pity on me, moaned the sister.
I am sorry if I have caused you any pain. But I am not. I just wanted to recall those days of our childhood. I didn’t mean to.

No, you do it purposefully. You bother our mother, cried two voices in unison.
Suddenly the father towered over them and just managed to control himself from hitting them.
Is that the way to talk to your elders? Don’t you have any manners? You brutes.
Shut-up, shut-up. Don’t try to show your over-smartness, my dear husband, hollered the wife.
When the sun sets, continued the uncle, the sky and the sun both are so red. It seems that somebody has spilled on the western horizon. It’s the only time the sky and the sun seem to have a blood relationship. Just as we used to have.

“Used to have.” The words registered in the mind it was intended for. The whole atmosphere was now so tense that it looked like a stretched balloon. Even a slight pin-prick would cause large gaping holes in it. But their world was in a well and who would go in the well with a pin. The liquid air that they were all breathing for so long, laboriously, now was in such a state that they all knew that any moment it might solidify and they would all die of suffocation. For want of air. If they all have top die then why does death not come at once? Why was the delay? How long are they to wait? They could not stand the tension building up. But their fate was linked with the colour red. Red is both the colour of life and of death. So they have to live and die at the same time.  They would live to die and die to live. A state of uncertainty. A state of delirium. Not induced by any drug, but by their intricate love-hate relationship. They would stay in a state of indecision, for they have loved and hated at the same time. They would be stoned for life ... unless ... until...

They kept quiet. No one spoke. Time passed as if in slow motion. Still they did not speak. They knew to speak is but to cough out blood from their mouth. That was agony. It had a red colour. The colour of life. The colour of death. The colour of the setting sun. And the only colour of the rainbow that contrasts with the azure the most. So they kept quiet. They were afraid to meet each other’s eyes. So they stared away. Mainly at the sky. Some saw a bright sun beaming in the sky. Some saw dark clouds hovering in the sky. Some saw a rainbow in the sky. Some saw it was raining. And some saw it was raining with a rainbow. Everyone saw a separate thing. They didn’t divulge what they saw to each other. They would keep it a secret. In the secret chamber of their heart. Time passed ever so slowly. Still they were silent. Until it chimed and it was almost time.

I am almost late. I have only an hour and a half’s time, declared the uncle.
Suddenly the stretched band of tension that was engulfing them began to get perforated at a number of places. Fresh air gushed in. They were at last to breathe freely. Their lungs were in a poor state. So was their heart. How much blood was in it? How red was the blood? Will anyone fever spill their blood in the skies of the western horizon? Will their rainbows ever have the red colour? They were busy.

Tea was prepared and served. Everyone was again happy. But no one knew that others were also happy, so they did not show their joy. Instead they remained thoughtful and brooding. It was not more than half an hour before they realised that though their lives were proceeding they were not proceeding towards the future. The past was ahead of them. Again they will fall into a ten year long wait. Again they will busy themselves preparing for a future day. A day like this that might not come again after a ten year gap. It might take longer. They wanted time to take its own sweet time. They won’t hurry time anymore. They won’t wait for someone to come from the north. They would wait instead for the rains. Or the rainbow. So what if the rains were a bugger. Nature is not as harmful as others are. Nature is compassionate. It will oblige before any harm is done. It might be they won’t see the sun setting with a red glare for ten more years or for twenty more years or even more. They would be satisfied and happy and pleased to see the red colour in the sky only when there is a rainbow. It will bring them happiness. The little tensions in their family will be like some slow poison administered in very small doses. They would all be aware of it. But they would also know that they are not going to die. They will live. Nature will protect them. They will live for ten years or for twenty years or more till their uncle returns. Of course the rainbow will still form a bridge. Bridging the north with the south. And the hope won’t die that since the bridge is there the distance will be bridged one day.

He left when it was quite dark. Again he will have to pay fifty rupees extra to the taxi. Again the coolie will say that it is reasonable. Again he will sit in the first class compartment. Again the train will trudge up north. And if it rains then ... spurting from the dust, jutting from the railings, splashing on the sides, submerging the tracks... and...

The children woke up early the next morning. It was a bright sunny day. They rushed to the balcony and stared at the sky. Their mother also came. They hid themselves in the folds of her sari. They asked, Will we get a rainbow today, mom? The father, who was nearby, wanted to answer either yes or no, But the mother replied, If it rains.

Short Story 2014 First Prize, Amit Shankar Saha

Candy

Twenty four hours ago that boy was standing just where he is standing now. No, a little to the left. Or, a little right. Okay, choose any, either left or right. But he was standing, not sitting or lying down. He was standing. And we are going to view everything that happens in this story through the eyes of that child. No, no, not a child, a boy. So widen your mind’s eye. Double up your imagination to invade my muse’s den. You are going to read a most  extraordinary story - a story where this boy is the major character but his role is just a cameo of sorts. This boy doesn’t act until we almost reach the end of the story. Though the boy reacts quite often. Some might say that it is just an ordinary story. It is for the reader to choose.

Already in this short beginning a good number of contradictions have cropped up, so I must forewarn the reader that there are more to follow. This story is of contradictions. Full of it. Or, for some it might appear just straight forward. The reader has to make his / her choice. And no longer will I ask you to make your choice - you have to do so of your own volition. Reader, you are free to do so whenever the need arises. Whenever there is a contradiction -whenever there is a choice to make.
But I can already see the reader getting perplexed and wanting to know that if the child, no no no no, the boy is the narrator then what I was doing there when the boy was standing there. I was waiting to see just what the boy was waiting to see. And it is the boy who is the real narrator. But since he is hardly ten years old and has a very weak vocabulary, I vocabularise (permit my neologism) what we see through his eyes. No, no, don’t contradict that he is a mannequin of sorts. He is the only narrator of this story. No, contradictions about that.

So, now to start the story. But the story has already started for the boy has already seen her showering the flowers while I was busy explaining contradictions. Now don’t read ‘showering the flowers’ as ‘flowering the showers’ and imagine any erotic scene. I appeal to you not to imagine your own inane contradictory images. Whatever inanity will follow will come solely through my pen. Your imagination should come to my muse’s den and not to any other god-forsaken lair. Anyway the boy is not peeping into a bathroom but into a garden. As for him being a voyeur or not, is up to you to choose as the story progresses. So she was watering the plants in her garden. As flowers were all around her. And she manoeuvred to water the plants in the last row; the pollen grains yellowed the stretched salwar on her bum. She kept on watering the plants unaware of both, her yellowed bum and that peeping Tom whom since the beginning we have named by a common noun and called just ‘the boy’.

After she finished her work she washed her hands and feet with the little water that remained in the water-can and then went in, can in hand. But the can returned back to the garden; hurled out, bang, crash, hurt. It hurt our little narrator on the right knee and he limped back home. He might have hurt his left knee. I can’t remember clearly. But he limped back home.

Yes the boy has a home. He is not one of those aloof narrator about whom you won’t know anything even after reading the whole story. He is the neighbour of the woman who bathed the flowers and the flowers in turn painted her bum. Or, that is to say he is the only child of her neighbours. We elders always assert our superiority on the youngsters by calling them ‘child’ but for that we are not going to rename or nickname ‘the boy’ as ‘the child’. That would be too childish. So the son of her neighbours might have got a good scolding from his father or mother for hurting his left or right knee. But we won’t care for that because not even the boy cared for it. He will remain with his limp till the very end of this story. By this you must have guessed that the time span of this story is not months or years but just a few days. Maximum two weeks, a fortnight. Not more than that. And we are going to skip a lot of unhappening days along with their details. Neither I have any patience to write a long story and I hope nor do you have the patience to read it. Or, you might have the patience. But I don’t.
We find the boy a couple of days later standing just where we found him standing a couple of days ago. She was again watering the flowers. Unlike the limp of the boy, the injury (remember the can) on the left or right side of her forehead has healed. Or it might not have healed. Nobody asked her about it. Her husband came out and walked out.

Her husband was a Christian by faith and a teacher by profession in the school where our narrator, the boy, studied. She was a Hindu girl but they were in love. So they married and she changed her religion. She found no difficulty in changing from Hinduism to Christianity but she found it absolutely impossible to change from salwar to skirt. The dozens of skirts that her husband bought for her lay unused and she always wore the few salwars she had from her unmarried days. What one gets used to, like habits, die hard. It should not be surprising that had Adam and Eve instead of covering bottoms in shame for their sin had covered their faces then just to maintain status quo generations after generations and civilizations after civilizations would have devised ingenious  undergarments for our faces and we would have been wearing them now. And we would have felt utterly embarrassed to pull the under wear from our faces in front of anybody except our mates. Or not even in front of our mates. So she always wore salwars with yellow bottoms. And her husband hated that, though he had fallen in love with a salwar-clad girl only.

The boy watched her finish her work and go in, can in hand. This time the water can did not come out again as her husband was not at home. The boy stealthily entered the garden, up the couple of steps, on the verandah, and started peering through the slight-parted curtain on the left or right side of the door. He saw her cleaning a mirror and swinging her yellow bottom, rightleftrightleft, until she caught the boy’s eye in the mirror and turned around suddenly. Seeing the unexpected turn of event as well as the woman, he became frozen and just could not move his legs. He felt as if his limp was cured but his legs were paralysed. She came towards him, smiled and as she opened her mouth to say something, he suddenly found enough strength to move his legs and he ran away. Nononono. How can he run? He has a limp. So he limped away. And just out of the garden he collided with a candy-wallah called Holiday Singh. He used to sell ‘bombai mithai’.
And now for the first time we are going to have an exception to the rule. What we have professed at the beginning as a rule will now have an exception. The boy instead of reacting will now act in our story but for a minute time, hardly a minute. He will have a conversation with this newly arrived figure called Holiday Singh, the candy-wallah.
“Eh munda! Why are you running from your house like this?”
“My house. Yes. Oh! Running.”
“Have you got hurt?”
“Oh! Uh! Ya. No. No.”
“Ooo, you are limping. Let me take you to your mother.”
“Oh! No. I’ll go.”
“Oye, where to? Go home. And don’t tell that the candy-wallah Holiday Singh hurt you. You bumped into me, not I. Take this boy.”
The boy took the small piece of candy and again entered the garden from where he had limped out a few moments ago. No women with yellow bums were waiting for him there. After the candy-wallah Holiday Singh was gone he again slipped out of the garden. He vowed never to peep through the door again. The windows were okay. They were outside the garden. He went home, candy in hand. Whether he ate the candy or threw it away I don’t know but for the next three / four days he did not go to school due to severe tooth ache. But I found out that every month he used to have tooth ache. But that is another matter.
Three or four days he stayed at home and all those days he spent watching her; through her windows of course, doing household work. What attracted the boy towards that woman? What made him so inquisitive? These are just matters of conjecture and I leave it to the reader to do the necessary. But he was attracted to her. Whether he saw her as his mother or sister or girlfriend or daughter or anything else can best be answered by persons who study child’s psyche. But, for us, he is not a child, he is a boy.
And this boy was a clever boy.
He knew that he was on a secret mission and like we don’t spell out SECRET over things secret, he never slipped out of his house stealthily. He just limped out casually. Though we also know that he is on a secret mission, we don’t know what the mission is, since we see everything through his flesh and blood eyes and not through his mind’s eye. And we also know that only mind’s eye has no chiasmata and that is what that makes everyone see things the right way. But alas! We don’t have access to the boy’s mind’s eye. Or we might have access just if we notice the boy’s actions and thoughts. Oh! Oh! The boy hardly acts (only reacts) and seldom thinks.

Enough about the boy. Back to our story. Yes, on one of those three or four days, in the afternoon, when shadows have again lengthened considerably, he saw something that needs to be written. Mind it; it is not just to entertain you but the story demands it. And I hope that you’ll have realised the coming tragedy, cheek-by-jowl of this tongue-in-cheek comedy. So that one day the boy peeped through the bedroom window and saw the husband and wife sitting nude on the bed amidst the scene they have created. And no doubt the argument centred on the things that they have shed from the bodies, that is clothes or more specifically salwars and skirts. It seemed that in their arguments they would not do the very thing for which they have unclad themselves. But I find some readers raising their eyebrows. I also realise that it is very difficult to stop oneself when one is charged up on the bed. So for those ‘some readers’ with raised eyebrows I give an alternative: They finished their usual business, which the boy was most unfortunate to watch, and then started their argument. Or the boy might have come a little later, may be when they are mid way or towards the end of their argument. Whatever the boy heard I have written on a separate sheet of paper and have no intention to include in this story. Hanh! What the boy saw I will write. Towards the end there were a few slaps - obviously from the husband to the wife. Even if I want to contradict it and write ‘vice-versa’ beside, I can’t. You know why. And then there was that bonfire.
Fuelled by kerosene, the fire began to devour salwars after salwars. All yellow-bottomed salwars. Getting scorched and then bursting into flames. Her husband burnt all her salwars. You know we Indians are champions in burning clothes. Don’t you remember those swadeshi and boycott days? Those bonfires were really huge compared to this one. Anyway, so after the bonfire was lit the two nude persons, one with a look of triumph on his face managed themselves within their undergarments. And the wife, to sabotage her husband’s triumph, declared adamantly, “Either I’ll wear salwars or just lingerie but never those clothes.”
It was just about this time, before any contradictions rose about the woman’s declaration, our narrator, the little boy, became aware of someone coming down that narrow lane. He at once steadied himself and started doing one of the two things that is wonted to do in the space we leave between two buildings. Obviously he wasn’t taking a short cut way like the other man but was just peeing on the wall below the window. But the man either by seeing the designs that the forced spurts of urine made on the wall or the smoke coming out of the window got curious and started approaching the boy. The little boy, getting alarmed, turned around towards the man and started shaking his little penis vigorously to scatter little droplets that adhered to its tip. The man, also getting alarmed, scampered out of the lane without getting his self profaned. Thus the boy was saved. Or in fact the husband and wife were saved.
And I am also saved from elaborating on yet another character of this story.
And now a little elaboration on a character of this story. The husband. We know he was a teacher but we should also know that there was a prospect of him becoming the principal of the school within a few days. On the twenty-first he has to make a speech in the chapel in front of the dignitaries, and there and then his future will be decided. He might be promoted and made the principal. He was already in preparation of the speech, rehearsing it at home, polishing his oratorical skills and hoping to stay clear of scandals.
So we see the time is now ripe enough for the scandal. We, that is the boy and I, position ourselves at the backside of the garden so that we remain hidden from any roving eye. And then she comes out shorn of her salwar as well as shame, can in hand. She started watering the plants and slowly, like a solenoid increasing its magnetisation, more and more eyes began to turn towards her. Eyes from a coven of witches, eyes from a parliament of owls, eyes from all, gradually, gradually. Eyes from everyone who were present there, from footpaths to balconies. Some eyes stayed on her, some eyes shrunk from her. She with only her loins covered, like that person called Greatsoul Gandhi who also had seen bonfires of clothes, kept on with her work. Or she had covered herself a little more than Gandhi for she wore a short kurta too. But she kept on watering the plants in front of staring eyes, who were trying to guess which of the seven deadly sins she was committing. And then the ululations began and continued until Holiday Singh entered the scene.
“Are’ sister. What shamelessness! At least care for the embarrassment your boy will feel.”
Effrontery or not, I don’t know, but she went in, can in hand, hearing the remark. I think she went in just because she realise that underage kids were getting uncensored entertainment, which wasn’t their privilege.
It was only after the streets had started clearing out that her husband returned and remained quite unaware of the scandal that his wife had just given birth. So he made himself busy with his speech while there were many other people who made themselves busy by discussing the beauty of his wife. As for me, I found her beautiful beyond compare, that is to say she was really ugly. But like beauty, ugliness too lies in the eyes of the beholder and I guess my eyes are really ugly. Anyway, you’ll also won’t like to read a story having an ugly heroine. Days passed and every evening a crowd used to gather near his house. And all those evenings he used to stay out either to let the scandal grow or due to some important business. Whispers began to grow. Now here, now there. It was only very near to the office of the dignitaries who were deliberating on his promotion that he overheard a whisper and came to know about the scandal. That day he returned home earlier than usual and saw what we have been seeing for some days.

It was beyond his imagination.
I had read somewhere that imagination is the memory of things that did not happen. I believe it. For often what does happen we can never imagine and no memory can relate it to anything past. He was aghast. He was used to and happy seeing his wife cavorting about with the household work inside the house in her undergarments. But he never imagined her boldness or shamelessness. I prefer ‘boldness’. She was really bold. I am in her favour, though the reader might object that favouritism might mar the realistic elements of the story. But I believe in what Oscar Wilde once said that the more personally biased an interpretation is the truer it becomes. Again the eyebrow-raising reader might ask, “What truth is doing in fiction?” I am not going to answer that question.

So where we were?
Hmm. Her husband was furious, infuriated, angry, piqued, agitated. He needed to do something. Something drastic. He won’t let all this speech practice go useless. He must do something. Something drastic was destined to happen.
Another bonfire was lit.

Morning. The charred remains were rescued by the police by breaking open the door. Why no scorched clothes were found? We all know why. Suicide. Hmm. Her husband was informed. That very evening he had gone out of station for a couple of days. Alibi! Mentally deranged, they said. Schizophrenia of sorts. Suicide, no doubt. Not even a question was raised on the man’s innocence. Many were interrogated by the police. Even Holiday Singh was interrogated but not the boy. Days passed by. Many came to console the husband. The wave of compassion even washed the dignitaries who were to hear his speech the next day, the twenty-first of June, the longest day of the year.
Nobody was much surprised by this drastic incident. Or were they surprised? Might be. But one thing is certain that our narrator, who has a limp, the boy, was baffled. It was only he who knew a lot. I mean apart from you and me now. He thought it was a murder. Or at least a suicide in desperation. Oh! Sorry. We have already said that the boy seldom thinks. So let me rephrase the sentence a little. The boy did not think it to be a suicide. Or at least a suicide without desperation. He was just awe-struck. How can her husband be both at home and at that other place! The boy began to imagine aloud that the two places were in two separate time zones so at one time he could be present at two places. But what about the closed door? It was all due to some manipulation of dimensions, especially the fourth dimension. He quickly realised that like on the cinema screen everything loses one of its dimensions, there was certainly some dimensional aberration in that woman’s death.
Wait. For those who are thinking how such a small boy’s mind hold such big, big things; we must realise that we are getting into his mind for the first time and that too just because he is imagining aloud. He might be a precocious child from the beginning. But for those who are still sticking to your point, you can skip the portions you want to.

So the boy was taxing his mind. It should not be surprising if I say that he was in a fit. He limped back home and saw the reflection of the clock on the mirror in front of him. He saw the clock hands. He saw time going backwards. He brought down his sight below the line of the mirror and saw the just-now-scrubbed shiny floor mirroring the ceiling. He looked down at the floor and felt as if he will fall in the mirror, down to the ceiling. And he fell down on the floor and became unconsciousness. In the evening the boy was sitting on the steps outside his house. And Holiday Singh was passing by.
You must have lost all your patience by now and asked why a minor character called Holiday Singh, a candy-wallah, always comes from and is given so much of importance. It will be made clear in no time for he is instrumental for our climax. So Holiday Singh, seeing the boy, whose mother he thought has recently died, sitting on the steps of what he thought to be somebody else’s house, came to him and said, “Poor boy. Have some candies. Why are you sitting here? What has happened has happened. You should not waste your time wailing and crying. You are a brave boy. Get up and smile. And you should not stay out long. The world is not good. Let’s go home.”

And now for the first time, in keeping with the rule, the boy will act. So long he was just nodding and shaking his head and now he blurted out rather rudely, “This is my house and that woman was not my mother.”
“Why do you say so?” retorted the candy-wallah.
“Because it is the truth,” he confessed.

And slowly the boy revealed to Holiday Singh everything. He let him see everything through his mind’s eye. Holiday Singh heard everything in details. And all those time, god knows from where two flies came and got into my ears. I had a terrible time getting them out. I absolutely could not hear anything. And when at last I got them out, the boy had finished telling what I had intended to hear. The conversation had almost ended for after that the candy-wallah Holiday Singh gave the boy an idea and a candy and went away.

The idea worked. But I think that the candy worked for even though the boy ate the candy in front of me, the next morning he went to school without any toothache. A little more should be said about this man, the only one to have a genuine name in this story, before we something about the candy he gave to the boy. Or it might not have been his genuine name; just a nom de guerre. Never anyone saw him ever anywhere since the boy last met him. I think he is sort of sorcerer. Remember his clairvoyance. Every time he addressed the boy he addressed him as “boy”. How did he come to know that he will be called “the boy” in this story? It might be just coincidence. Anyway the candy was also mysterious. It had a mysterious shape; it had mysterious inscriptions on it. It was just a sweet, sugary lump of mystery. And it was eatable. An eatable talisman.

And now the idea. The next day, the morning of June the twenty-first, the boy went to school earlier than usual and detained his teacher, the husband, for half an hour just before he was to make his speech and discussed with him, how and why Brutus betrayed Caesar. The boy stood in front of him and heard his explanations and as he finished answering one question, he had another question ready to shoot. And the teacher, in his happiness, obliged the boy. So it was almost time for his speech when he excused himself for he was fed up of saying “Brutus, Brutus”.

And now he went to make his speech. The boy sauntered limply and sat in the last pew of the chapel. He had a triumphant smile on his face. The speech started. He had a deep, oratorial voice. He gave a good beginning and then suddenly, due to slip-of-tongue or otherwise, he mentioned “Brutus betrayed Jesus” instead of “Judas betrayed Jesus.”  Nobody realised the mistake. Or someone may have noticed. But the major part of his speech was on Judas’s betrayal of Jesus, and the same mistake began to crop up again and again. And now gradually the audience surely began to notice. Every Judas was changed to Brutus making the people uncomfortable. People began to fidget. Dignitaries began to frown. But the orator kept on making the same mistake again and again. Two minutes passed. Five minutes passed. He kept on with his Brutus, Brutus, Brutus, Brutus. It was almost at the head of ten minutes, when each and every member of the audience was finding the speech unbearable, that his eyes met the eyes of one of the dignitaries. And there he saw his El Dorado pulled down to ruins in the earthquake of his mistake.

Whatever Frankincense, Myrrh and Gold he had hoped to receive as gifts seemed now out of his reach. Dumbstruck and thunderstruck at the same time, he began to stare at the faces of every member of the audience until he saw the triumphant smile at the last pew. Very slowly his being began to dissolve in thin air. He slowly started diffusing into space. Silence was everywhere and everyone watched. He began to lose all his dimensions. He was now just as the pictures in old newspapers, full of thousands of dots. Gradually he began to disappear. And now, and now, like a whiff of smoke he vanished. He was no more. No more to be seen. He became dimensionless.
Something stirred in the last row of seats in the chapel. Everyone turned to look. The boy stood up with a triumphant smile and limped out of the chapel. Ruminating on the candy he had eaten yesterday. And since then ennui descended on anyone who looked at the boy, ruminating on a candy that he had eaten years ago.

Poetry 2014 Shortlist, Amit Shankar Saha

Behind the Curtain

Behind the curtain
Of the window
I cannot see,
But I know
There are people
Living lives.

Sometimes a hand
I see
Adjusting the curtain,
Sometimes a washed
Linen
Hangs outside the window.

Indicating -
Existence of
Other people,
Living their lives.
A family perhaps -
Morning vigil,
Nightly sleep,
Daily life,
Petty strife,
Husband and wife,
Behind the curtain
Of the window.

Do they know me?
No they don’t.
They see my head
On my window sill,
They see my legs
As I sleep,
They see the dark,
They see the light,
My windows don’t have
Curtains. Perforations
On the sheet of my life -
Visible like history.

Early morning,
The pigeon, the sparrow,
I hear the crow,
They also may.
Wake up.
Sunlight.
Who goes out
Of the fourth floor?
Market, office, picnic,
School, movies, holidays.
What if I had been
One of them?

Living their lives,
Imagined by someone else.
Behind the curtain
Of the window
On the fourth floor
Where I live. Now.

An ordinary life,
A family,
Friends, in the world,
Not an imagined life.
I get affected,
I cease...

Poetry 2011 First Prize, Amit Shankar Saha

Dream College

Dearest love - we did not
Go to Presidency
But who were those,
Who sat in our places,
Waited for each other,
Took notes, argued,
Appeared in the exams,
And then passed out?
Did they feel our absence?
The things we did not do.
The enormity of it all!

Weren't we intensely absent
That the intensity of it
Made us present,
Just as an absent lover is
Present inside the heart.
Otherwise, in that other place,
Why ghostly we did walk?

Other place: Once a mate,
Cleared the dust from a bench,
So that I may sit beside her.
And I sat, leaving the
Dusted space, in between,
Vacant for you.
And I believe,
You did the same for me.
Two vacant seats!
But where were the truant duo,
If not in dream college.