Story of the Week

My visit to Mussoorie for the first time years ago was occasioned by a letter I received from Ruskin Bond (born 19 May 1934) in response to an article on his love stories which I did for the Amrita Bazar Patrika. By a happy coincidence Ruskin, commissioned by Penguin Publishers, was then doing an anthology of Indian love stories.
On receipt of my article Ruskin wrote: “it was very kind of you to send me your article on my love stories; otherwise I would probably have missed it. It’s a perceptive and finely-written piece. Thanks! Do send me your questionnaire; I’ll be out on a trek during the next two weeks, so end of June will be best. Can you recommend a love story by a Bengali writer (in English or English translation) which I could include in a Penguin India anthology of Indian love stories? Something written this century …”

She sits on a bench by a sleepy lane, her head teeming with wandering thoughts. Blank page is her only friend. She enters into dialogue with it when the silent storm rages all through night. But her only book so far remains relatively obscure.

I was at Café-Coffee-Day stewing in my own juices when I couldn’t help overhearing a conversation on weightier matters between two people.

When I called up a Guest House the day before our journey to Jhargram, the call of a rooster unimpeded by any noise came on the line before the owner could speak. It instantly cheered me up, for I could sense the surrounding silence out there. Little did I know then that I’d by sheer chance come across a sport that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
Out in a car travelling around this belt where nature is still so picturesque, also historically and culturally an important town that spawned many writers and artists, we heard calls of roosters mixed with murmurs of a crowd from far off. When I asked the driver if any festival was on, he informed us of the cockfight festival and took us to Tiakati village ground.

My maiden visit to Darjeeling planned diligently over a few weeks of frenzy, just after the first wave of pandemic eased a bit, started from the Gurudwara bus stop location in Kolkata, where we boarded a Volvo bus and reached Siliguri early next morning.
The car driver who took us to Darjeeling from Siliguri was very amiable. At my prodding he talked about interesting things hardly known to the tourists travelling the place for the first time. As we stopped at the roadside breakfast corner, he gave an account of the Cheetahs coming down from the hills and temporarily taking shelter in tea gardens for giving birth to their babies. He also told us, during the journey, as the hills and the tea estates came into view, about brow-antlered deer bred in Coochbehar, who are then released in forests around Darjeeling.

The man could see a lady putting something inside a bottle, and throwing it away into the swirling seawater receding from the shore before going away.

The other day I got a mail from Bill Aitken, famous travel writer and biographer: “Trust you are well and finding life full of wonder and meaningful. Our Apso Kabir (pet dog) passed away suddenly in summer, probably from eating a dead bird which had eaten a poisonous fruit. I immediately recruited a new puppy called Freddie, this time a large breed. She is a beautiful and intelligent golden Labrador and already at 7 months weighs 30 kilos…”
While writing the rejoinder, my memory associated with the dog came flooding back.

If I am on the road, happen to be discussing with someone the merits of a book I have just read and liked, I often lose sight of obstructions and bump into people. One of the books that made me forget which side of the street I was on is The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.
I read The Alchemist long after it was first published in 1988. I heard about it making waves, found it in every bookshop I visited, but somehow looking at the cover page and the blurbs, found nothing that appealed to me. I often wondered what lay within this slim volume that had the world at its feet.

He was accelerating down the left flank, toeing the ball forward exactly the same length each time, as though there’s a hidden magnet controlling his touch with the ball.

Ridiculing
Is the first part
Of their strategy.
Their remarks
Like barbed arrows
Will target
The very core
Of your being.
But you must steel yourself
Against such hurts.