My first OS in the collection...I'm not sure if I like it very much and I think it has scope for improvement, but it hit me that if we go by the TL timeline, and the story began 10 years before the present, then the bachcha track would have (despite all that Raavan and Barbara Mori silliness) taken place at the start of the millenium. Besides this, it also hit me that keeping in mind Onu's journey to the US took place a few months maybe after their first marriage, he would have probably been in the US for almost a year when the 2001 attacks happen.
This collection - more often than not - is my way of dealing with Onu's own issues with home and identity, and I would imagine, as a storyteller, than Onu's insecurities within America, and the trauma and loneliness he would have faced there (he does say, when Neelu asks him why he sits in the dark, that he has seen things scarier than darkness) would be fueled by an incident like 9/11 and its aftermath.
I think this first OS won't be much, because some of the central issues in this collection will be dealt in later OSs, I would guess.
--
Up, Up and Away...
Pal...rahe ya naa rahe kal...
Jab tak tera yeh mota angel waapas nahin aata na, he had told her only hours ago, almost struggling to get the words out from his mouth, yeh angel tera khayal rakhega...
Kal...yaad aayengay yeh pal...
He was an idiot. Anurag Ganguly was honest enough to admit it to himself. He was the biggest idiot in the universe and he wished Mishti was around to confirm it for him.
But now...she was gone. He would never feel her hand on his shoulder or her umbrella over his head. She was someplace safe, and he was dangling in the open sky with a hundred other passengers all aboard Pan Am.
The thought alone made him cry.
It wasn't just one angel he had left behind at the waterfall tonight...it was two.
Maybe later he would tell himself he didn't regret it. That she was worth a hundred thousand angels and that none of them would ever match up to her, ever. That he was right not telling her that he would try to finish school quick, and then ' fataafat! ' finish college and get a job and then come back and elope into the sunset with her.
Maybe it was a good thing because he had almost told Meenu Miss this and then he had lost her before the words had even left him.
Maybe by the time he did all that Taani would get sick and tired of waiting.
Maybe by then both of them would start thinking like grown-ups. Or maybe he was the one who needed to grow up. Taani was smart enough not to take this entire marriage thing seriously, wasn't she?
Maybe by then he wouldn't exist for her anymore. He knew she always would, but that was because secretly he liked what their fathers did to them.
But for now he was free to cry, and there would be no one to stop him.
No one.
When the plane hauled itself up to the skies, Onu shut his eyes tight and let his tears flow. Taani had not left him...not really. She was safe and cherished and treasured. She was in his heart.
That was all that mattered.
Hum...rahey ya naa rahey, yaad aayengay yeh pal...
--
Four hours. Four hours and thirty-six minutes since he had last seen Taani. Two hours and seven minutes since he had hugged Ma and Di and Robi and withered beneath Baba's lazer gaze. Twenty minutes and two seconds since this blasted plane had left Dum Dum airport and pushed him towards a fate that was too new for him to even grasp completely.
He would give anything...anything to have them back. Even Baba. Baba's voice rumbled in his ears like a dormant volcano, but in the din of engines outside readying themselves for take-off, and the silence in his cabin, even Baba's screams sounded like music.
"Oye," the little girl beside him ordered, "Move aside, I want to see the window seat view."
"The window seat view of what?" God, on top of everything else an ache was starting to pound in his eardrums and the cabin was spinning around him. Was this how being in a plane felt? Maybe putting him on a plane was Baba's newest latest form of punishment. If it was, then it was definitely working.
"The window next to you, Buddhu!" the girl said.
"Hey! Don't call me Buddhu, only one person in the world is allowed to call me that."
"That one person must be a genius. Now move!"
Onu followed her gaze. She was gazing at the sight downwards in awe, smiling as the scene before her started glowing before her, bit by bit, streetlight by streetlight.
Onu smiled for the first time in hours.
Shaam ka aanchal odhkay aayi,
dekho woh raat suhaani...
His beloved Calcutta twinkled before him like a moonless star-filled sky come down on earth, and the rivers glistened...they were now the size of puddles that were made in the rain. His home was now a tiny dot, but it was beautiful...and it was still home.
His beloved home.
Aa likh de hum, dono milkay,
Apni yeh prem kahaani...
Onu's eyes never left the glittering strings of light, not even when they were obscured by clouds.
Somewhere beyond the clouds was Calcutta, his Calcutta...and he could imagine for a second that one of those little shiny dots moving over the horizon was his mother and father, or Taani and Laboni Ma...
His heart swelled over with love. Love for what he was leaving behind. Love for the one place that had always been home.
He would return. Soon. Baba would make sure he did.
He took out a piece of paper, and wrote this:
Sept. 11, 2000.
Mishti,
Calcutta from up here feels like the sky going upside down and touching the earth instead. I wish you were here to see it with me.
I don't know where you are so I won't send this to you.
Motu.
I'll deliver these to you myself when Baba brings me back, a corner of his mouth inching upwards in a smile.
September 11th, Onu told himself as Calcutta ' and then India ' disappeared from view.
Remember the date. And the time. And that from now on, Mishti's nights will be your days, and your prayers in the morning will give her solace during her lonely, tear-filled evenings.
I will remember this day all my life, Mishti, if only because this was the day I left you...
This was the day he had lost everything he had, and he vowed that one day he would get it all back.
He didn't know then, that he had much, much more left to lose. That it would one day be a day of loss not just for him.
Hum, rahey yaa na rahey...yaad aayengay yeh pal...
Memories would stay. Only the meaning behind them would change.
It would take Anurag Ganguly less than 24 hours to reach New York. But it would take longer - maybe his entire life - to remember this moment, and this date, for what it was, and capture the sheer beauty of it.
--
Edited by Elizabeth Darcy - 13 years ago
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