Story of the Week

It’s small hours when the phone rings.
“Hi Mo, Mi here. Get to the roof. Quick! I know you’re fond of moonrise. Watch the moon set!”

From the Grant Trunk Road side, there is an access way to Sheoraphuli Railway Station (Kolkata Suburban). If you enter the compound from this side, you first come across a stagnant pool fenced by iron railings. It is also an auto and rickshaw stand close to a fruit market 
In a few corners hugging the banks of this foul waterbody, rarely seen by the commuters, and absolutely untended, spreads out a bunch of round floating leaves, and through them peep out a variety of lotus flowers and water lilies.

I take my relative to a Psychiatrist.
Doc, I say, all night she remains stark awake. She drifts off to sleep only when a dove starts cooing outside her bedroom window at dawn. She’s just landed a good job that’ll require her to do morning-shift soon.

If there’s one town on earth that drew me again and again, it’s Mussoorie, where I mostly travelled alone. I liked the mall area, but my heart was always in Landour, some way up from Picture Palace Stand.
As I trudged up the winding road, my attention took in the surroundings while I waited for the clock tower, the starting point of the Landour bazaar proper, to show up. The first time I sighted it from a bend in the road, it quietly sent my soul soaring!

Just as the bus entered Jodhpur, it broke down. The travellers were on their way to Jaisalmer from Abu.

For Jhumpa Lahiri, the gifted writer, everything that comes to her mill, ordinary or otherwise, is material for writing. Her newest work Whereabouts (Penguin Hamish Hamilton 202I) which is more an auto-fiction (her protagonist is an unnamed female storyteller) than a novel is testimony to that.
Throughout the book, she sketches scenes from a city that readers of all hues will identify with. What makes the book memo­rable is her extraordinary depth of feeling that imbues each word. I’m an avid reader of Jhumpa’s poignant prose. And I often remember the great prose of Virginia Woolf’s psychological fiction whenever I read her work.

The vehement impulse to have nothing to do with this meaningless existence sent him packing to the seppuku forest. Following the trail he eyed a sign: Don’t venture further. He took the forbidden path, his unsteady feet struggling to detangle the gnarled roots.

Of all the stress-busting means, watching aarti (the ceremony of lights) at temples does wonder for me. I have been to Dwarka, Somnath, Benares, Haridwar, Rajgir especially for this purpose and came back home refreshed and rejuvenated.
Another temple, almost at our backyard, I have often been to is Dakshineswar Kalibari. In the evening I would proceed towards the building, adjacent to the main temple, where people of all faiths converge. They team up and sing bhajans to the accompaniment of musical instruments, creating an aura, a divine atmosphere.

I often read, and listen to, authors’ interviews. Sometime ago, I came across on YouTube such a literary conversation of a renowned American author famous for works like The New York Trilogy (1987), and the novel 4 3 2 1 (2017): Paul Benjamin Auster.

Is the purpose of life only to eat, drink, and be merry? Or, is there a higher purpose that one ought to discover before it is too late? Surely, to know how to justify one’s own existence to oneself is to know one’s destiny. However, this is a rather difficult task which entails primarily two steps: to recognise the seeds of creativity one carries in one’s being; and then to nurture these seeds till they grow up to their full potential. And, along the way, one has to brace oneself for fierce opposition, for there are people who are ever ready to put a damper on your growing enthusiasm. And if they fail to dislodge you from your avowed path, they may indulge in activities generally known as psychic assassination.