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Cycle of Cliches Breath-taking!
Breath-taking!“It’s like a bowl,” said Nisim as we looked around the parts of the city visible from the terrace. He formed a bowl with his fingers and the palm of his right hand to describe Guwahati, our new home, “Plains surrounded by small hills and the mighty river, Brahmaputra, flowing by it. Quite like our town,” he added.“We should go to the hills, someday,” I suggested. Back in my mind, a blurred image of a hilltop cottage, with a full-view of a blue river came alive. Deeper down, there was a prompt: it’s there, in one of those hills. The hills weren’t too far, as they seemed.While entering the city, we passed by a road which I felt, would hit one of the hills head on. But, the road glided by the hill, took a turn and met another road – a busier one – which passed alongside the river for a while before meeting with another one. The river was almost dry, following the rainless months of winter. The white patch of sandy beach stretched almost to the middle of the riv
Cycle of Cliches Roots
RootsWithin a week of moving to New Guwahati Railway Colony, Nisim had found a place where he could go for badminton practice – hall of an unused Railway warehouse which could house two badminton courts, enrolled himself as a member of Vivekananda Yuva Kendra, one of the social welfare organizations next to our quarter and discovered many other exciting places on his way back from college. He told me he would take me to all those places someday.I wished I could make friends as easily as Nisim could. It was through Nisim that I got introduced to Birinchi, Rajib and quite a few others who played cricket at the Bihu Field. Birinchi was the same age as Nisim and as I got to know they came across each other every day at the bus stop while going to their respective colleges – Nisim, to Cotton College, and Birinchi, to B. Barooah College. I had seen Birinchi bowling and he seemed to be the quickest among the fast bowlers playing in the field. It was only when I faced his bowling,
Cycle of Cliches Sunset Dating
Sunset DatingThat every sunset brings a promise of a new dawn sounds like an overstatement, or perhaps Emerson forgot to add to a chosen few at the end of his famous saying. In the evening when Deuta was killed, somewhere in some jungle in Burma or in some small town in Bangladesh, the bosses of Mikhail Phukan, Samiran Kalita and Matlif Ahmed would have hailed them as the new heroes, as the true sons of the soil, because they had freed their Paradise of one apostate of their revolutionary decree. Five years down the line, per the growth model of The Organization, these three sons of the soil would have either returned to the mainstream or got encountered by the Joint Forces. If they had succeeded in cracking a deal with the Joint Forces for their return, they would have led respectable lives of businessmen or political touts with a gun for self-protection and the coveted prefix – Surrendered – in front of their heroic names. On the other hand, if they had been encountered,
Cycle of Cliches Milestone
MilestoneEvery sunset brings a promise of a new dawn, but the promise doesn’t entail a guarantee that the new dawn will be the one you always want to wake up to. After sunset, when darkness engulfs everything, you may try to light up your surroundings with fluorescent bulbs, tube-lights, candles and other means of artificial light, and yet suffer from a terrible sense of shrinking to nothingness and feel like a lonesome string of monologue, a disjointed design of the alphabet, a feeble anecdote of clichés. The way I had felt when Junali had disappeared from the colony.The next evening, I stood by the railway crossing for a while, at the entrance of the colony, watching express trains pass by in speed, goods train shuttle to change tracks and make their way to the yard, people and vehicles moving from one side of the crossing to the other when no trains passed by and the railway gates were opened. Every passing moment shrivelled me to the point that I didn’t want to see any
Cycle of Cliches Sermons on the Hill
Sermons on the Hill“Gadho, you need a direction and not a bike to find someone!” Birinchi was at his sarcastic best when I shared the benign intention of purchasing a brand-new bike with a whopping forty-six thousand rupees. Nisim was sitting beside us and relishing the breath-taking view of the eastern part of the city shrouded by layers of thick early morning mist. In fact, sitting at the stairs of Geeta Mandir that was what all three of us were doing. It was freaking cold at six in the morning, and it pierced our jackets, monkey caps, hand-gloves, jeans and shoes, like a million piercings by needles. Triple riding on motorbikes and scooters was banned in the city, but people still did it at insane hours, when the city police patrolling would be relaxed. The best, and perhaps the only insane hour, was daybreak. On the way, while we shivered from cold, Birinchi announced that in two weeks, he would also purchase a bike. His bowling skills had caught the attention of the pr
Cycle of Cliches Paradise
ParadiseThe ten-day mourning period seems like a never-ending press-meet, with every visitor coming to offer their condolences placing flowers, fruits, packaged milk, Joha rice in a tray in front of Ma’s portrait, and one childlike, innocent query to us – Jahnobi and I: “What happened?”Have people stopped reading newspapers, watching privatized news-channels or scrolling through Facebook posts? Has the talk of the town died out already? Or is this query just a filler to break the unfamiliar quietness in the room, where they might have had hundreds of inspired talks with their Baideu? Or did she have too quiet a farewell for her persona? Are they yet to realize that very soon, their Baideu too, like all good things, is destined to become a cliché? I think, I should print a standard verbiage and put it up at the main-door of our quarter, like a placard in a protest rally. Something like this:Ma, that is Your Beloved and/or Revered Baideu a.k.a Late Mrs Ruplekha Bhattachar
Cycle of Cliches When it Rains
When it Rains It was just a light drizzle when Jaanvi came out of the New Arts Building. Meeting Ranjita after so many days, was a treat. They work in the same place, the prestigious Cotton University, but hardly get time to meet due to their hectic schedule of lectures. Phone conversations can, in no way, complement meeting someone personally. At least, not someone like Ranjita. Childhood besties they are. In school, they were inseparable. Meeting her any day, means a much-needed unwinding bout.She starts walking towards the Administrative building with a cup of smoking hot coffee and two singoras in her mind, the ritualistic mid-day snacks in the Teacher’s Common Room. These are those familiar February drizzles – the ones that usher in Boxonto Panchami – starting around the fifth day of the Assamese month, Magha, and continuing in small spells for about a day or two. These aren’t the kind of which would make her completely wet, get her mekhela-sador stuck against her body, wit
Cycle of Cliches Memento
MementoThe Teacher’s Common Room door opens to a surprise for Jaanvi, a pleasant one at that. The 20 X 20 feet room, known mostly for an insipid silence amid the vibrant din of the campus, gloomy tube-lights, antique ceiling fans, mammoth bookshelves along the walls, empty chairs and desks with books and notebooks scattered on them most of the day, while their occupants, the teachers, would be engaged in delivering classroom sessions, now looks packed with people – senior students, colleagues and support staff. Often synonymous with inactivity, except for tea-sipping, cookies-munching, lesson-planning, assignment-checking tit-bits of conversation spells among colleagues, this room is now buzzing with movement and activity. Jaanvi’s colleagues and students, mostly known faces, are engrossed in candid, enthusiastic group chats, as if they have met one another after ages. The room has been decorated with balloons and streamers, freshly lit with white CFL bulbs. The congregation
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