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The Nineties’ Thing
Date de publication:
2021-07-12 11:07:43
Dernier chapitre
Cycle of Cliches Touchdown
TouchdownWe will have our respective touchdowns today – Jahnobi at 6:30 PM British Standard Time at Gatwick, and I at 6:30PM IST in Pune. Nineteen days have elapsed since I am away from my workplace (you may read Karmabhumi). I have no clue how my team members are performing their daily rituals of chanting “Thank you for calling…”, “I understand your concern, however…”, “the options that I can give you are…”, “I apologize for the inconvenience…” to appease a bunch of unknown, unseen, fatally wronged, over-promised and under-delivered voices and names on the other hemisphere of the world, trying their guts out to get the best possible solutions to their issues. It’s not easy, going through these iterative bouts of supervising all these computer-screen-facing, headsets-clad, wretched souls engaged in those precarious rituals. It sucks the blood out of the brains and when I return to my flat in the morning, all I desire is a sound, undisturbed, dreamless sleep. When I wake up in
Cycle of Cliches Missed Turns
Missed TurnsNineteen days ago, I was greeted here, in the same airport, with the concerned and impatient voice of Jahnobi over the phone, “Have you reached?” Junali’s full and wide smile and the whiskey-dipped lines written for her transformed into a maze of eerily quiet corridors in in the main building of Gauhati Medical College Hospital. Every minute counted during my hunt for the single occupancy cabin where my mother was admitted. Even after a running-around for about ten minutes, following the directions of the old man sitting at the May I Help You counter, I was, kind of, lost in the maze of alleys, corridors, staircases and closed rooms in that mammoth building. “Yeah, reached, but kind of lost. Where’s the cabin?” I asked her. I wasn’t sure whether Jahnobi expected an assurance of my presence, or if she was just reminding me of the urgency – every moment can be the last moment“Just ask someone which is Ruplekha Baideu’s room. People know that she’s here.” I could
Cycle of Cliches Like a Free Bird
Like a Free BirdAt the door, there’s this tall, lanky fellow, with a week-old stubble on a pitifully undernourished jawline and a face with unusually white patches of skin standing with a tilt to his right. He has an aluminium forearm clutch in his right hand and he is emitting a strong stench of inflammable oil, a stench which is common among city bus drivers and conductors, diesel engine technicians working with the Railways or in the car-repair workshops. For me, it has really been hard to recognize people in the neighbourhood, because in this colony, people keep moving in and out. In the last eight years, every time I came for my vacations, I met at least one new family in the immediate neighbourhood, or came to know about at least one, who had moved to some other part of the city or to some other part of the country. The biggest bluff that our movies show is that the characters don’t recognize other characters when they wear a disguise. We usually recognize people’s eyes
Cycle of Cliches Beyond Binaries
Beyond BinariesThe ninth and the tenth days have been the busiest in terms of visitors. These were mostly repeat-visitors, who were doing a little more than paying just courtesy visits. Relatives, friends, and Ma’s close aides in her office. So, whatever means I tried to keep myself aloof, I had to come out more often than the previous three days. Thankfully, the what-happened-to-her questions had gone down significantly by then. These visitors wanted to help us in whatever way possible. My friend Rajib wanted to take an entire week off from work, but I said it would be fine if he made himself available on the eleventh and the twelfth days. I think he didn’t quite like the idea. What was he up to? Be by my side, like Ranjita was by Jahnobi’s. It would be rude to tell him or for that matter, anybody of those visitor, that they could be of greatest help to me, only if they let me be on my own.I missed Biswa though. He is in a remote village in the bordering areas of Rajasthan
Cycle of Cliches Distant Realities
Distant RealitiesThere’s nothing uncomfortable about the navy blue suit. It’s tailor-made unlike the other ones purchased earlier from online stores or from ready-made showrooms. The white two-ply twill cotton shirt with a double fused semi cutaway collar, the French cufflinks, the black Oxford shoes, belt, wallet and the wrist-watch strap can’t have complemented the suit better. I like the distinct tapping of my shoe-soles on the spotlessly clean chequerboard floor with every step I take through the corridor.Level 5 Function Room at the Southbank Centre. London. Dream destination!The black bow-tie is a bit of an annoyance though. Never wore a bow-tie before. Never needed to. Never attended an English dinner before either. Never needed to. I can bear the bow-tie though. The company of people will make good for any trivial annoyance.Right on time. Half five it is. It’s a Carrera Calibre 5 Automatic by Tag Heur. The most expensive one from my collection. I was pleasantly
Cycle of Cliches Worldly Wise
Worldly WiseOne morning, when Nishant was barely three months old, Papa and Mummy came to see him. Jaanvi opened the door to them, but was in a fix whether to let them in. Ma called them in. She not only called them in, but offered them to sit and also brought Nishant to them. Papa held Nishant in his hands for a while and then gave him to Mummy. The next moment, both of them were in tears, crying like children.Jaanvi was sulking within. Those tears didn’t mean anything to her. She was living in a strange, robotic world. A world which looked perfectly normal from outside, but whose insides burnt like hell every moment. She waited for Papa and Mummy’s collective weeping to come to an end and their tears to dry up, while Ma excused herself to the kitchen to make tea for them.When Papa and Mummy’s sobs mellowed down they kept looking at Jaanvi. Perhaps in anticipation that she would say something. She didn’t. Rather, she didn’t want to. Mummy’s curse had muted her.Ma enter
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 t
Dernière mise à jour : 2026-03-24Cycle 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
Dernière mise à jour : 2026-03-22Cycle 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
Dernière mise à jour : 2026-03-20Cycle of Cliches Language is Power
Language is PowerI write from the crematorium, but this definitely doesn’t make my story more readable than the others. It does make me an attention seeker though. That I’m in a flow, which, by the way, is also my desperation, only means that I fear of losing sight of a juicy plotline for my f
Dernière mise à jour : 2026-03-20
