The pimp

The deal was sealed within ten minutes.

Even by Kamathipura standards, the deal had taken longer than it should have. Ratan heaved a sigh of undisguised relief as the scrawny fellow walked off with Sujata. He clutched the money like a child and started crossing the busy street.

Bespectacled Ratan was never pimpesque enough. Not that he imagined himself to be a pimp. He had always imagined himself to be better than his bretheren in the industry,as he sometimes self-indulgently called it. He had a BA degree, and was much more educated than his peers. As he walked past a crowd of  tired Bombay men and women, his mind wandered off to the new story he was writing.

Ratan, the pimp, was a story teller by the night.

He wrote stories, most of which remained unpublished, stacked along with dust and newspapers in one corner of his single room shack downtown. One of his book,however, had been published. It was a book of  long drawn detective stories, wrote in simple Hindi. He had not recieved any money for the book, the publisher had been one of his customers, but the fact that a printed manuscript bore his name made him unmeasurably proud. The book had even, briefly, made him contemplate quitting his job.

He hated his job. He detested the dark lanes of Kamathipura. He detested the girls and their persuasive customers. He was definitely not one of them.

“Would Archana understand?” he suddenly thought.

The first letter had arrived within a week of his book being published. A strongly flirtatious, feminine, hand written script, signed ‘Archana’. The letter had praised his story, and him both, and although it was the only fan mail he had ever recieved, Ratan recognised genuine appreciation. He wrote back immediately. Over the months he recieved more letters, each more flattering and more audacious than the previous.

Ratan was slowly drawn into the mysterious, charming world that only an artist and his audience can conjure, a world of mutual praise and denial, of admiration and distance. And before he knew it, Ratan was in love. Her appreciation of him and his literature spurred him on. He inherently disliked his friend’s wives, most of whom could neither read or write. He would do better than them, he always knew.

He disliked marriage. “A story teller”, he would tell his friends, after a couple of drinks, “is never satisfied with one woman. The moment he gets one, he creates a better one with his words”.He despised the married men who came to him with their insatiable lust. He never liked the girls, whose bodies he pimped .  He was a loner in the trade, the odd man out. A pimp who disliked whores and wrote stories.

For months now he had wanted to walk upto the address scribbled on the envelopes but could never muster enough courage. Today however, he had gathered everything he could and set out towards her building to meet his secret admirer and perhaps, a future mate.

“Her parents would definitely like me”, he thought as he reached the chawl and slowly climbed the uneven stairs that led to the first floor. He knocked on the second door. An old woman opened the door. He looked at the envelope he held in his hands and looked around to make sure he was at the right door. He took his chance.

“Archana hain?” he asked.

The woman repeated the name loudly and went back in, leaving the door ajar. A few minutes later, a thin, dark girl emerged from the shadows.

Ratan recognised the girl.

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somewhere in between

Quietly, when the noise dies out
and strange new dreams fill in
not nightmares, neither dreams
somewhere in between

when the dreams are mere excuses
and the unquiet, eminently queer, exists unhindered
and when dawn is elusive
i stay, somewhere in between

dusk perhaps, neither here nor there
semi sunlight, semi darkness
a few stars peep out
while most sleep

would i ever know
how we were when it was daylight?
Or would it all stay hidden
somewhere in between…

I draw poetry on the walls
and stare at the rain outside
seeping through the roof
an unforgiving torrent

somewhere far
a lonely star awakens
and takes its place for the night
staring down at the sky

i am alive, i tell myself
near the skies
but nowhere near the stars
albeit,somewhere in between

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Kolkata-A rejoinder

A devastating fire broke out yesterday, in the famous Park Street, gutting major portions of Stephen Court which houses the famous Music World, Flury’s and Peter Cat. The stories have just started to pour in, tales of how people chose between burning to death and falling to it, tales of how people, passerbys formed nets with their hands to save people who were jumping from the fifth and sixth floors and tales of how kolkata braved one of its saddest days.

in the melee of dying men and women, in the midst of a fire which ravaged the heart of kolkata, honourable railway minister found time to visit the spot, clog the traffic, put up antics and also blame the communists for the fire. history wwill always judge the character of a city by the leaders it chooses for itself. God save kolkata

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Kolkata

Kolkata is a city which comes to me in dreams. In small, illogical arrangement of disturbed segments. They say that it is a city in rot, they don’t know, they havent lived in Kolkata. There is an essential difference in staying in Kolkata and living there.

This city never changes, it is constant, there, like a monolith of unreasonable demands. It is demanding. It demands your loyalty. Perhaps there is no other city left in the world which protests a far away war ,in a far away land ,by coming out in the streets with red flags and loud slogans. That is Kolkata, a sloagan, a red flag. She protests injustice, she protests war, she is not just alive, she thinks, she demands a better life, not only for herself but also for millions of men, women and children who have perhaps never heard her name.

Kolkata is essentially feminine, she has the other, old worldly charms ,tucked away nicely in the corners of Park Street, Strand Road, Esplanade, Lenin Sarani, College Street. She is modern, in the grotesque flyovers of Minto Road and APC Roy Road. She is narrow in the bylanes of Jadavpur and Behala. She is fresh, like a morning shower ,in the crossroads near Maidan.

She lives, staying defiant of the multitude of changes that time has wrought over the other great cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Beijing, Moscow, New York.She stays there, the way she was over a century ago.

When the mischiveous British government divided Bengal in two. Kolkata woke up against her rulers, rulers she had till then borne with the magnanimity of a lover, flirting with the ways of the goras,living in bunglows. The workers and the students , along with the bourgois middle classes woke up with a start and started a fire which gripped the entire nation. The fervour Bengal raised and Kolkata led, became the movement which ultimately proved to be the nemesis of the british government.

For an outsider, Kolkata and Bengal are not too distinct, almost anyone from Bengal, is usually taken to be from Kolkata. But to every Bengali, the distinction is severe, almost absolute. They take pride in their geographical revealation, in their distance from Kolkata’s busyness,in their identity. It is true that the richness of Bengali culture is not Kolkata’s treasure only. It spreads all the way, across every gram(village), moffusil (town) in Bengal, and to a great extent, even beyond boundaries, to Bangladesh, the twin sister. But if Bengal be rich and if it be distinct, then Kolkata must be her eyes, her face, her smile. Kolkata is the window, the morning. Bengal is the light.

I have been to Kolkata too less to claim this love, this expertise. But then i am perhaps too much in love with her streets, her winds , her tales, her longings, her indecisions, her resilience. She is the lover i never had.she has been there ever since i could remember, i sensed her presence only when i landed on her shores, five years ago.

I am not from Kolkata, i was born and brought up in Lucknow. The cities are closer to each other than it appears. There is a distinct fragrance of yesterday in both the cities. They share a common muslim upper class culture and both the cities have grown as centres of music, arts and language. The average Bengali still fights in local trains using an apni, quite like the Lucknowite ‘s aap. Language is what binds the two cities, the soft, melodious urdu in Lucknow , complements the essence of Bengali in Kolkata. Dhaka, the other twin, remains a blend, a confluence of the two great cities.

Kolkata has her heart firmly in place. She lacks the strong fascist undercurrent of Mumbai’s politics and the aloofness of Delhi’s corridors of power. The chief minister still stops at Nandan, every evening to have a cup of tea and to meet the ever present artists and musicians there. They say that the left’s stars have dimmed now and the last remaining vestige of communism is on the verge of becoming extinct. They don’t know. Kolkata’s communism was never about elections. Kolkata’s communism was never Orwell’s Animal Farm. It was always as distant from Moscow as from Peking. It had a character of its own. A heart of its own. Kolkata was never really communist enough for observers. She maintained a stoic silence, percieved communism as a domestic import , coming in from the rural spreads of Bengal. But in her heart she remained a lefty. When the grand old communist died recently, Kolkata stopped and came to bid farewell to the man who was Bengal once. Jyoti Basu, stood his ground like a giant colossus and shaped Kolkata in his own image. He defined her poiltics and her policies. He nurtured the city.

Great cities have always had mentors. Kolkata has had her share as well. From Tagore to Sukanto, from Bose to Basu, from Sarat Chandra to Sunil Gangopadhyay, from Ray to Mrinal sen, Kolkata lives in her culture. Evry morning, from most houses in Kolkata, and essentially Bengal , the melodious strains of classical music(and an accompanying harmonium)can be heard and relished.

Endless peans can be written to this great city. Kolkata is personal to me. If lucknow is where i started, i know, Kolkata is where i will end. This is a journey between two great cities. The more i go away from her, the closer i get. I yearn for her, every minute, every moment. Kolkata is a memory, it comes back often, in small, illogical arrangement of disturbed segments. Segments of poetry, passions and evenings. Then let this be a song to you, from far away shores, a poem for remembrance.

May i return home someday.

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