Grandma's Story

Grandma’s Story

       Nidhu Bhusan Das

Continue your story, grandma

I’m interested.

Is it? Listen then:

Know of Padma ?

Yes, I do.

We’re here because of her.

How! Can a river guide?

Not guide could uproot.

One night she gorged our home.

We left with home deity Lakshmi

She, in dream, told me you would come

To make us happy. So you’re Soma.

I'm A Liar

                               I’m A Liar

                                              Nidhu Bhusan Das

         I’m a liar, am I, really? This doubt haunts me, often and anon. Monists would say, if not a liar, at least I’m a stupid. They believe statements have literal meanings, and we need not have doubt about it. I would have been happy had I been able to go by such a belief. My personal experience is different. I cannot take it for granted that words reveal the mind, sound may, sometimes, when it’s exclamation. Let me explain.

        Once my buddy Dulu, now in Maryland, USA in a chat message told me ,midway through the conversation,”Well,Nidhu, I’ll return in a minute” and  left. After two days she sent me a mail which reads: “Nidhu, dear, never mind. My daughter Roxana is back from New York in vacation. She arrived when we’re in conversation. You know she’s so naughty, and won’t allow me to share time with anyone else.  So, I couldn’t return, as promised. Would you mind, dear?” Could I, especially when we’re childhood pals and classmates till university days? I replied,” No, dear, I couldn’t mind. Your silence has been golden. Now, when you have told me of Roxana mom, can I but be gay? I could understand you had become damn busy with something important. Dulu protested against my statement, “Your silence was golden” and said vehemently that I was ironical and critical of her going away promising to return in no time.

       Dulu, as I know, and I’m, perhaps, the right person to talk on her mental process, is mercurial. She would often pick quarrel with me over trifles, scold me for minutes together, and then cry throwing books at me. We had many intimate minutes as well, planning future shared life. We quarreled and next minute caressed each other. Friends would hurl oblique remarks, and we would not mind.

       She has been equivocal- what she says yields meanings enough to hide her intention, and smiles when I fail to comprehend what she actually means. Even when I guess the meaning correctly, she misleads me saying ‘No. I have not intended this. What I mean is………’ Really, it’s difficult, I should say impossible, to win against her, she is so naughty. I’m not at all ironical when I say silence is golden, but I must not contradict her because she will, in that case, stop talking to me, which I cannot bear. I don’t lie, yet when it comes to my relation with Dulu, accept I’m a liar, and it’s for peace and to be together even when we’re apart.

KASTURI: Mom’s Beauty Nidhu Bhusan...

KASTURI:
          Mom’s Beauty               Nidhu Bhusan...:            Mom’s Beauty                Nidhu Bhusan Das No, mom I won’t have coffee Rini,I understand, you don’t like health dr...

          Mom’s Beauty

               Nidhu Bhusan Das

No, mom I won’t have coffee

Rini,I understand, you don’t like health drink

Mom, I would like to see you have it

Let me drink your beauty.

                     Dearest Chuck

                              Nidhu Bhusan Das

Tell me, little sister, when it comes to make a choice

What you pick up in tenderness

A book, a friend or your kids?

If you’re for a book, it’s love for shared knowledge

When your choice is a friend, it means you can step out

In case you say “I’m for the kids”, you’re an affectionate mom.

To this my sibling says,” I need all.”

I in glee suggest, “You’re still my little chhuby, dearest chuck.”

Elusive Angel

Nidhu Bhusan Das

A shadow eludes

My right leg itches to rise

The left one sticks, why?

If desire engenders fantasy

Reason brings back to reality

The conflict is interesting.

Rolling waves lash the coast

The water recedes

 Leaving behind surfs.

My angel hovers overhead

Sends down dew drops

That the sun swallows up.

It is bewildering

I cannot catch up with my angel.

 That’s Why I Bleed

      

                                                         Nidhu Bhusan Das

        I bleed, am being burnt. Don’t know why. Lalon was wrong, is it?  Is Allah the only word for the Almighty, Ishwar and God are forbidden? Am I the mother of only those who pray in the name of Allah?

        Look at me. I am perturbed. They kill my children who are not theocratic. They are theocratic because theocracy gives power and lucre. They shed blood because for them bloodshed goes well with attainment and preservation of power. See how they seek to repeat the rampage and killing like they did forty-two years from now in 1971.

      The youths took up arms and fought the War of Independence, with the support of the people who cherished a nation based on cultural identity. They went against the liberation war and collaborated with the occupation army of Pakistan. After the humiliating defeat of the occupation army, the collaborators went into hibernation. The usurpers who killed the Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman with his family members at 32, Dhanmondi Road on 15^th August 1975 called them to arise and shared power with them.

     The killers rewrote the Constitution to destroy the secular character of the country.

Now the country is set to restore secularism, and demand execution of the killer-collaborators. Their trial at the International War Crime Tribunal is on. Meanwhile, three verdicts have been handed out – two death sentences, one in absentia and one life imprisonment. The life term could not satisfy the overwhelming those who go by the spirit and values of the Liberation War. The youths who were born after the resurrection of the collaborators demand death sentence for kader Mollah who has been awarded life imprisonment. They launched a movement on 5^th February with the demand. The Parliament amended the Tribunal Act adding the right to appeal. The collaborators and their Islamist supporters started rampage and arson after the third verdict awarding death sentence, in presentia, was awarded to Delwar Hossain Sayedee.

      I cannot but be sad. My children are in agony being killed, wounded and rendered homeless only because they are religious minority or they demand death sentence for the collaborators, ban of communal parties and politics, and restoration of the secular polity. Do you think it right to force people into accepting any diktat in the name of religion. If yes, you do not respect human right. If no, you accept that it is not righteous. Righteousness is a tenet of foremost importance in Islam, like in other religions, monotheistic or polytheistic. I bleed because righteousness is undermined and human rights are violated in the name of Islam by those who are not enlightened and, thus, obscurantists. Let there be light for them.

Moms' Pix

          Nidhu Bhusan Das

Rini-Jhini, my nieces, born to Soma
So sweet are they, I didn’t know till the other day
When she mailed the pix, from the coast
Of the Arabian Sea, soon after we
Discovered we are siblings,
The fact, mysteriously hidden, so long.

O God, that this could happen, a sort of
Oedipus myth! We’re believers, Soma and I,
And, therefore, have no doubt
That it’s true, the discovery.
Uttam from Heaven looks down, happy
To see Soma stoically bears the brunt.

The twins, exactly like my mom,
Are good at learning, reports Soma,
And can cook assorted food.
I long for the food, moms would serve
Affectionately, sitting beside, for me to eat.