Chhat puja at Gomia

Missing thekuas this time. It was my last link to the celebration that chhat puja was in my childhood days. The visit to the river ghaat was mandatory. Both at sundown and at the following sun rise. Each trip held a separate attraction.

The fun began even before we reached the ghaat. We would generally be walking in groups - I with my friends and mother with hers. All along the way we would see beautifully decorated bullock carts carrying stalks of bananas, other fruits, thekuas, sweets and other items required for the puja. There would be devotees performing penances by doing sashtang pranams all along the way or by carrying heavy tokris of puja goods on their heads. There would be blaring loudspeakers as well as groups of women singing hymns of Chhathi maiya, children shouting in excitement and worried mothers shouting to control the mischievous ones. All together the entire way would be filled with a happy and harmonious din.
The evening trip was primarily taken to be with friends, to play in the crowded river bank and to watch the fire crackers make interesting patterns of light in the sky slowly turning dark. As the devotees prayed to the sun, they would light the diyas and place them in donas, the saal leaf bowls, and floated them in the river. In the newly acquired darkness of dusk, the entire place seemed transported to a magic land of fairy tales.
The trip at dawn was more difficult. There would be chill in the air and hauling oneself out of the bed seemed onerous. Yet, the temptation of "ghaat fresh" thekua was extremely tempting. I remember collecting thekuas one or two piece each from our aquaintances immediately after they finished their morning puja. When we returned, we would have a bag full of special thekuas to savour. The thekuas offered at ghaat were usually different from what was made in larger quantities for distribution. And that took care of my breakfast for that day. Through out the entire day afterwards there would be friends, acquaintances, father's colleagues dropping in with bags full of prasad, thekua and pedakiyas being chief attraction in them.

Now when I look back, I think, how easily we used to adapt to all kinds of occasions and enjoyed each of them to the fullest! I wonder at the religious rigour that our friends' mothers used to go through and how, yet, never, race, custum, belief or culture had come in the way of friendships. I look back and thank Gomia for giving us a childhood that celebrated pluralism, diversity and human relationships. 

The Monster

Short Story 2017 Featured Nabanita Sengupta

The Monster

The arrogant summer sun exploded into a hundred pieces and Raya swayed like a wooden doll with an eroded base. Her hands gripped a human arm before she lost all consciousness. After all how much could a ten year old bear. 

Drifting in and out of her consciousness, Raya vaguely heard human voices, conversing in Hindi. She was comforted, at least it was not the den of those infant devouring kuchche khao (Gobble you up raw) shouting monsters! They surely won't speak in a known tongue, the language of her family and friends! For Raya, languages signified familiarity and that meant a zone of comfort to her mind still unexposed to the sordidness of this world. Her subconscious mind alleviated her tension, assuring that familiarity of tongue meant a certain level of association, that she was among human beings like her own self, even if strangers. So, even now, when she felt closest to peril in her pursuit of the kuchche khaos, she drew comfort from the familiar language that she could hear and immediately fell into another round of slumber brought upon by an exhausted physical and mental state.
A skinny hand caressing her forehead woke her up. As she parted her eyelids, first in a hairline gap, and then gradually wider, the greyish white wall of the room in which she was lying down at that time, with its dense cobwebs and multiple cracks revealed squalor to her child’s eyes that was till that point only acquainted with the middle class mode of existence. Slowly, she adjusted her eyes to the dim light of the room and sharpened her gaze. An old woman with numerous wrinkles, which told stories of her long and poverty stricken existence, was sitting near her head and moving her long, thin fingers along her forehead. As soon as she felt Raya stirring into consciousness, she offered her a glass of water.

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A Room full of Tales

As Trisha walked down the pathway to the porch of that immense house, looming even larger in its afternoon shadow, she remembered it to be full of rooms. Rooms big and small, dusty and clean, dingy and airy — of all possible kinds, made that house. Each room had some story to tell, and one in particular had stories in hundreds along with a storyteller.

The rooms of that house were arranged in a particular pattern, like the chessboard squares – some occupied, some vacant. And those vacant ones were generally under lock and key, opened only occasionally to be fed with air and sunlight. Even rooms needed nutrition to survive. Like the pieces in a game of chess, each occupant had a designated room, personal or to share. These occupants also had their assigned importance which often shifted with time or manoeuvrings of their fellow house mates. But there was one occupant, the grand old man, whose significance never wavered. Even as a little girl, Trisha had always sensed this — his difference from the rest of the brood, in his personality as well as magnanimity. He was the driving force of the huge, old, almost crumbling piece of machinery that this house was.

He occupied one huge, circular room, containing a semi circular wooden table, its stomach bursting with books from all around the world. There were peculiar arrangements of lights as well. The old man had lights of various wattage which he used in accordance with the light outside. As the day sky gave way to dusk and eventually to the night, the illumination within the old man’s room kept increasing, giving a surreal touch to it. As a child Trisha had found this arrangement fascinating and she loved that room the best. It was where she had spent the best times of her childhood and adolescence; it had signified stories in her growing up days. Stories which homed in the crannies of that old man’s mind, slithered down to his heart and splurged out of his lips as the ancient heart pumped it with a practiced motion. She would sit listening, mesmerised by the perfect modulation of that ancient storyteller. The old man was her Pied Piper, she could dance to his tunes, walk with him to the edge of the world and back. Their mutual love for tales had tied them together in a strong bond – the young girl with her curiosity and the old man full of tales. The tales would feed her never ending curiosity and whet up her appetite for more.

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