Random musings II

As the nightmare moves toward its climax, you somehow escape from it and jolt yourself out of sleep. It was meant to be a harmless, lazy evening slumber. Hence you are astonished to find a viscous sadness gradually flowing down your throat and gnawing at your heart. You are not sure what is happening and you are beginning to have a vague idea. Several times you have heard the cliche "There's a hole in your soul". You can feel it now.

The darkness inside the room seamlessly merges with the darkness outside. Must be the sinister night sky, you say to yourself, which has sucked out all the light. Modus operandi of a black hole. As you blink a few times, the haziness subsides. Through the window, as your glance sweeps from left to right, you see the blackness slowly giving way to a cloud, red with embarrassment and pregnant with rain. Suddenly you realise what is wrong with you. Your heart has always wanted 'it'. It needs 'it', it knows it can never get 'it' and has learnt to live without 'it'. Nevertheless, in a typical childish manner, the heart sometimes cries out for 'it', knowing fully well that it is an exercise in futility. The heart can't help it, it hasn't got a brain.

You become aware of your surroundings. You remember the things you have got to do. This resuscitation has been expedited by the presence of a few faces around you. These are faces suspended in thin air. These faces have no bodies, no identity and no expression. These faces mirror the smoke that fills their brains. Their brains have been eaten away by parasites long ago and hence are dysfunctional. The faces are hazy, confused and nervous. They are not here to help you. They are here because society tells them it's a bad thing not to do the same. You feel a negatively charged cloud advancing toward you, slowly but surely, with the sole motive of engulfing your entire brain and unleashing the parasites that would like to feed on your vibrant brain cells. You know what's wrong with these faces. These faces, once upon a time, were identified by the bodies attached to them. Just like you are now. They were meant to give 'it' to you. Which they didn't. The negatively charged cloud is to blame.

You look around you. You see three receptacles. They have engulfed all your belongings. You're astonished at your meagre networth. You feel small, you feel you're being exiled for good. You feel terribly lonely. You want to cry out loud, but the cry just wont come out. You don't know what lies ahead, the only entity with which you can establish a one-to-one connection is darkness. The darkness which seems to engulf you, slowly but surely. As you stand, incapacitated, you realize what is 'it'. Love.

The Autowallah

You know how autowallahs in Kolkata are like. The owners of these overpriced public transport vehicles called autorickshaws are always in a hurry, swearing at passengers, at pedestrians if they can and of course at passing vehicles. They have a disgusting habit of charging a premium from a hapless passenger who doesn't know the exact fare from point A to point B ( to such an extent that to cut my losses, whenever I ply a route the fare of which I don't know or don't remember, on disembarking I simply hand the swine a ten/twenty rupee note and put on a "I'm a busy guy, just hand me the change, sucker, and make it fast" expression ). Abide by the traffic rules ? Thank you, but they are autowallahs, you know.....

Yesterday, en route to the local bus stop, I spotted an auto. The driver ( autowallah ) was about my age, about six feet tall, skinny. He was smoking a bidi ( poor man's fag, probably causes cancer but Ramadoss knows better ). I enquired whether he would ( be kind enough to ) steer his stuttering and spluttering automatic rickshaw, with me inside of course, all the way to Jadavpur.

Subsequently, this is what I heard:
Dekhun dada, ami to bhabchilam South City obdhi jabo, aapni 8B jaaben jokhon boshun, dekhi ar kono passenger pai kina.
( See, mister, I was planning to go only as far as the south city mall; since you're going to 8B let me see if I can get any more passengers )
After this un-autowallah like reply, he started shouting/ screaming "Et-Bee Jawobpur Thana Et-Bee Et-Bee !"

Later on, somewhere in the middle of the stretch that is the Prince Anwar Shah road, an old man made a Congress-like hand gesture to stop the auto and mumbled his destination. Unable to comprehend, the autowallah spoke to the septuagenarian, "Ki bollen thik shunte pelam na. Ami 8B obdhi jacchi. Aapni ki jaaben ? "
(Couldn't hear you properly. I'm going to 8B but not beyond that. Would you like to hop in ? )

Wow. I mean, I didn't believe that there existed in Kolkata a well-mannered autowallah, until then. Autowallahs never tweak their predetermined route, not at the request of a passenger anyway. They are advocates of the "my-way-or-the-high-way" policy. Have a polite conversation with a passenger ? Impossible. Be a little considerate toward an old man whose agility has been somewhat eroded by age ? No chance in hell, get real. This young autowallah was, therefore, a breath of fresh air, a delight. He was a paragon for his collegues. He was, quite obviously, testimony to the fact that there's no particular cause and necessity for the high-handed behaviour meted out by his fellow-men. In a nutshell, a very rare commodity indeed.