T3 || শ্যামা আমার || দীপাঞ্জলী সংখ্যায় Rudrapriya Sen
October Memories
Mou had been to many places, but nothing brought her more happiness than her Grandparents’ house. It was the one and only, no place had, or even would, ever mirror its grandeur. And no, it would be a lie to say that her Grandparents’ home had been a palace with multiple rooms and fancy chandeliers, it was as normal as any other house could get, but it meant something to her. The prospect of visiting that place would fill her mind with unbridled joy, she was free there, and could do whatever she wanted without facing any repercussions. She could chat with her grandmother for hours on end, she could have had as much as honey and sugar-soda as she desired and she could have asked grandfather to buy those special kinds of chocolate-chip cookies. As a young person, Mou thought that the idea of being allowed to do anything and everything without being under the constant 24/7 surveillance which she was so accustomed to was the greatest thing ever. Her parents would visit her grandparents once a year in October, during the festivities. So with festivities and unrestrained happiness, Mou had felt unstoppable.
Sadly, however, October hadn’t felt so glorious for the past few years.
It was, as Mou had to very painfully admit to herself, like any other month. She had lost her grandfather, and the local shops had also stopped bringing in the special kind of chocolate-chip cookies. Her grandmother had tried her very best to make Mou feel comfortable and happy, but Mou didn’t feel anything special. Now, for her, it was just a holiday, just a small break from the daily activities. The October festivity had somehow lost its magic and Mou knew that no one was to be blamed for that. For the past four years, she hadn’t asked for soda or honey, and sadly enough, she did not even want to enjoy Pandal-hopping anymore, her parents did, she didn’t. It was all the same and they showed it on the television too. Nothing really mattered. Lying in bed and calling her friends at odd hours felt far more entertaining than going out and looking at the diverse group of human beings on the road.
This year too, her father had gone out everyday, the city made him feel better, he said, the very thought of going out every day made Mou feel sick.
“Wouldn’t you go out and look at pandals?” Mou asked her grandmother, sipping her warm evening tea.
Her grandmother had been transfixed on the television. It was some soap-opera, and the same scene focusing a heavily dressed woman who had a very appalled expression on her face, was being replayed over and over again, with different kinds of visual effects each time.
Mou’s head hurt, she looked away from the T.V and looked at her grandmother again.
“hmm…” was all her grandmother managed to mutter.
‘Was she always so distracted?’ thought Mou silently.
“Pandal-hopping?” she said loudly.
“We will see…..my back hurts a lot,” grandmother said slowly.
Mou couldn’t sit in the living room any longer, she felt a huge wave of sadness hit her heart, it got all too gloomy in a matter of seconds. She didn’t want to sound pessimistic, but this time, she actually wanted October to end sooner. She wanted to go back home in Kolkata, meet her friends and go back to school again, her horrible, insufferable school with the most illogical people on the planet. But at that moment everything sounded better than that whirring fan, the wheezy old television which had stayed strong for the past 20 years and the smell of those extremely strong incense sticks.
She got up and headed straight to her room, it was the same room in which she had stayed for all these years. The room was still the same, the walls had dampened a bit and the bed felt much smaller than earlier, but still, not much had changed. Mou looked at her phone and decided to call her parents. They were out at some friend’s house, and she wanted to ask her father if they were actually going on a trip to the hills. Mou had wanted to click a few photographs here and there, but nothing inside the house seemed exactly worth photographing, maybe she couldn’t find the beauty in things, or maybe the house had itself lost its beauty.
When her parents came back, she had resolutely made up her mind to ask them to take her somewhere.
“Well, that can’t be possible, we have a busy schedule…” Mou’s mother said, taking off her ear-rings.
“What schedule?”
“Well we have a picnic, and before that we have been invited to my friend Piya’s house and….”
Mou didn’t even hear what her mother said , she let the words wash over her. She felt sad and angry again, and she sat down on the bed with a disappointed ‘hmph’.
“You will like it at Piya’s house, she has lots of cats and her son might be of your age-”
“No, I want to go to the hills, I brought the camera along with me and I have not been able to photograph a single thing!”
“Well maybe you aren’t that good at photography then?”
Mou felt her jaw dropping.
Mou’s mother looked at the girl’s disappointed face and then sighed.
“Do you want to go see the nearby Pandals around?”
“Hmm…..but grandmother doesn’t want to go.”
“Fine then, you and I can go for a day-out.”
“But what about the hills?”
“Your uncle told me about this river we can go see, we won’t really be at the hills but you can see them far off in the distance.”
Mou wanted to go to the hills, some place like Darjeeling or Curseong or Sikkim, someplace like that. A river sounded much less intriguing, but still she chose not to retort. At least her mother managed to take her out.
As a child the towering idols of the Gods and Goddesses had looked massive, colossal in fact. This time, she didn’t really understand how they had become smaller. Even four years ago, the idols looked huge. Was the budget cut short this year? Or did she just become taller? Her mother didn’t really get down from the rickshaw, Mou was the one who got inside and saw the idols. She was a bit disappointed that the Dhak sounded a bit different than usual, something told her that it was being played on a different rhythm. She remembered that one time when she was 4 years old, she had started dancing in the middle of the road to the rhythm of the Dhaak. That was what grandfather had told her and though he had a habit of exaggerating things, Mou knew this was true. She had liked to break into odd little dances at the slightest bit of rhythmic melody, like when her grandfather had played this catchy tune on a toy-bugle and little Mou had danced all around the house resembling a prancing monkey. She had always wanted grandfather to play the tune again, so that she could have danced to it once more, that however, couldn’t happen.
The idol : The Mother Goddess and her four children had the calmest expressions on their faces, with beautiful almond shaped eyes. Mou had never understood why they had to drown these beautiful works, true, it was a ritual and that is how things had been since forever. Mou had seen Bisarjan and she had cried seeing it. It felt so easy and relieving to finally let go of the idol and plunge it into water, but then again, something didn’t really feel right with it. ‘What a harsh way to say goodbye.’ Mou had thought.
“How far away is this river we are going to see?” Mou asked her mother, as she looked out of the rickshaw to see the silhouette of the massive mountains far in the distance.
“Not very far, we will be there in a few minutes.”
“Can you see the hills from there?” asked Mou.
“I am not sure if you can, but from what uncle and aunt said, the river is beautiful enough.”
Mou decided to trust her mother for the moment.
When she had finally reached there after a lot of walking, Mou realised that the river wasn’t half-bad. From the top it had looked like a silvery brush-stroke, and it twinkled under the bright sun as if it had been storing a hundred diamonds. Mou took off her heels and with much consideration managed to cross the rough and rocky path leading to the river. She was afraid of tripping and losing a few teeth because of the line of rocks underneath the flowing water. Her heart beat rapidly with every step she took, fearing a massive fall anytime. Once Mou had reached the heart of the flowing river and finally paused for a breath to look around, a small part of her admitted that maybe this was slightly better than the hills. A train was passing through the bridge overhead and the water was flowing at a tremendous speed. The rocks of various colours looked as though they had been purposely kept there. The vast stretch of greenery on the other side housed a flutter of yellow butterflies, it was all too beautiful for her, for a person who now only associated vacations and holidays with unlimited screentime. She had picked up a few rocks of her liking to give it to her friends back in Kolkata, they would have loved the rocks.
*
“Ma, did you pack the stones I brought from the river?” Mou said, alarmed.
Her mother was busy listening to what the air hostess said, Mou saw no point in that honestly, they said the same thing in each and every flight. Mother probably watched it because she didn’t want the air hostess to feel bad.
“You didn’t pack them?” Her mother asked.
“No, I don’t remember packing them!” Mou practically shrieked.
“What stones?” asked her father indignantly.
Mou decided not to answer, and with a huff of disappointment reclined her seat. She had to wait another year to bring the rocks…..and much to her own surprise, Mou couldn’t wait.
