I travel home this time of the year, well no forte here, it’s
the most common time of home-coming for most of the Bengalis from different
cities of India. To get a cheaper air-ticket or at least a 3AC berth , to get leaves
approved for two weeks at least, we all struggle for 4 to 6 months prior to the
month of October. And the excitement flashes in the social networking posts as
soon as the Mahalaya comes around.
The most usual conversation when you meet a Bengali friend
this time would be ‘Pujoe bari kobe jachis?
(When are you planning to go home, this Pujo)'
With Sir B K Bhadra tuning into his iconic ‘Mahishasur Mordini’ to invoke the ‘patriotism’
towards our festival and culture, the Facebook floods with the posts “Travelling
to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Intl Airport”, “always good to feel at home” blah blah , followed by numerous posts of each day of the
festival, selfies with Maa Durga and her entire family with our entire family,
added with humongous crowd in the streets and pandals and eateries and café. The
city decorates herself with freshly arrived autumn and embraces us as if it was
waiting forever.
And exactly after a week the whole atmosphere gets paled off with few
saddened faces boarding flights in the same airport or Howrah Railway station
waiting for the super –fast express.
Streets that lightened up and littered by millions of
pedestrian, suddenly come back to the normal emptiness, or the normal routine
of office goers, road side vendors, morning tea and ‘Anadabazar’, usual chaos
in fish market, jam-packed mini-buses and claustrophobic local train
compartments.
And most acutely, the emptiness prevails at the home, where
just a while ago entire family celebrated ‘home-coming’ of us and the Goddess.
Most of the apartments and individual houses , in the city
and in the suburbs are now marooned ,
there dwellers are aging citizens. And there emerges the year long silence and loneliness, longing for another festival , longing for their children to come
back home, longing for next year’s merriment. The usual morning tea sipped with
the crackling silence in the dining hall, the gifts just unwrapped few days
back when the grandchildren presented it to their granny, the usual submission to
the television and newspaper are back as they are the most obedient compassionate.
The strained and aged hearts would not agree to leave their root and start from
afresh in another city. The minds will be cursing the luck for the separations
and would give a second thought if they could also agree upon settling with the
children.
And for us, who just luckily got a window seat and the
flight has just taken off, look back to the city from bird’s eye. Even after 7
years , every time at this moment tears would roll down, I feel utterly embarrassed,
wipe it before anyone can see.
Then I reminisce, every year I go home something gets
changed.
- · Maa will have more grey hair than last year.
Baba
will be complaining about the joint pain. He looks dreadfully timeworn these
days.
- · Our room will be cleaned and arranged again , but in the book shelves I would see my old school text books have got another layer of thick dust and that small geometry box, now rusted a little more.
- · Once I went home after several months, I don’t remember how many, and I was looking for our pet cat. Maa told she is no more, died a couple of months ago. I had stopped loving pets ever since.
- · The garden on the terrace will have new plants on old tubs, but I will look for an old one I saw last year, which has stopped blooming now.
- · Then, baba is no more that active Bengali baba, who would love to go to fish market in search of fresh fish every day and haggle with the vendors, he goes now twice a week.
- · Grandfather had passed away long back, soon after I came to Bangalore… but will still be smiling from his 10x12 photo frame in the living room. As if welcoming me back. But actually he could never welcome me ever since..
And from all these scenery,
if I omit myself, there prevails nothing but solitude. The fear of insecurity for
them, the nonexistence of complement which they deserve in this age and the
incessant guilt feel fighting against the practicality of our situation.
Every time I give a thought of getting back to the city, I
find no job for either of us. Let’s keep the pay structure apart, there is no
job even in similar domain. Projects, which are handful, either demands another transferable opportunities to other cities, which is meaningless to solve this
problem, or they demand to negotiate the job quality. Well I do not do any
rocket science business here , and a simple Optical Telecommunication is no big
bang to get attached to for life long. But even then where is the job.
My handful of friends who still works in Kolkata complain about their situation all the time.
And then I see least effort to expand the IT sector in the
city. It is what it was 7 years back, with minuscule changes. Now even strangled
with political red tape, bandh culture, no freedom of speech.
And here comes the infinite loop which keeps postponing the
thought process, which suppresses the dilemma of returning home, which compels so
many like me to settle in a different city permanently with no hope of coming back.
Probably there is a way out to join two ends of the string ,
going far away from each other, I am still searching. Let me know.
