Kill You, Sure (17)

             Kill You, Sure (17)

                                         Nidhu Bhusan Das

 

“You’re with me the whole day

Remain till I’m awake

Appear in dream, when asleep.

You’re no more, yet how much with me!”

Bithi remembers the verse often, when alone or feels lonely. Now she jerks to wakefulness at the announcement:” The Boac flight to London takes off soon.Passengers’re requested to be aboard and take seats right away. She takes to her feet and heads on, happy to be again in the region of clouds and be able to float with them like downy cotton which rises when gets released from the boll. She’s slim and in a tryst with the shapeless and spaceless when in thought and on the wings of imagination. A supreme joy visits her in the state of stance. A smile hovers over her face as soon as the plane has taken off.

“My God! I should have told papa and mom. Okay, they’ll know. Tell them at the next stoppage,” Bithi decides and glides to the realm of creative thought.” How come my grandparents are still so fresh even as they’re touching their 50^th anniversary? What’s the unique chemistry between them who are from two distinctly different stocks?”

Her thought veers round to love. Love’s there in everything and everywhere, she perceives. It’s sharing. The sun shares his glory with every member of the solar system. The planets orbit round the sun in love, and do not deviate from their paths.Love’s equality. The polar tips of the earth are as important as the Equator. For her love isn’t, what many think, merely having sensual pleasure. She’d been to Ajmeer and Mathura-Vrindabon with her parents and experienced the serenity connected with this real-ethereal phenomenon.Love, she realizes, is transcendental. The smile generated by love and the other way round, glides higher up – the union of the two humans emerges as the oneness of their souls; at that level the lovers feel the supreme joy.

Again images appear in her mind, her second encounter with Nizam at the Dhaka University campus, the ‘Kill You …’ episodes at JNU, the latest Conor’s ‘Tá aithne agam ort’ greeting,              and all such experiences.” How things happen!” she wonders. Now the world appears to her as a vast and complex entity within the boll of the vaster and still vaster universe.” We’re like cotton in the boll, and like cotton tend to rise higher and higher for the unknown and the coveted when feel free. We’re unlike cotton as we feel the pull of the bond with the earthly relations,” Bithi understands. Her thought is much quicker than the speed of the plane.

She’s now nostalgic about Ireland; she’s visited several times her grand aunt Sharon Kennedy, a professor of Anthropology at Dublin University. The granny told her about the charming folk traditions of Ireland. Sharon took her to the Abbey Theatre which served as a nursery for many of the leading literary figures of the 20th century, including W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, Sean O’Casey and J.M. Synge.She told Bithi folktales like that of Leperchuan, a mischievous fairy in emerald green clothing. The Leprechaun is said to have a pot of gold hidden at the end of the rainbow. If ever captured by a human it has the magical power to grant three wishes in exchange for release. The tale of Halloween is also charming.  A popular Irish folk tradition Halloween has its roots in pagan beliefs. Halloween marked the Celtic New Year and was originally called Samhain. The ancient Celts celebrated Samhain with bonfires, games and comical pranks.

Bithi likes folktales as they’re means of travelling to the pagan past and can enjoy being transported to the romantic past. When nature and natural phenomena were given the form, in imagination, of anthropomorphic deities and worshipped, people could have been happier than we’re, thought Bithi depending on her study of social-anthropology. The present day world in which monotheism dominates is fraught with violence and terrorism, she laments. Here man kills man, destroys Nature, and shows scant respect to all living forms as the pagans did. So, we’ve the problems of ecological degradation, terrorism – violence against Nature and fellow beings, she ponders. She’s aware a neo-paganism emerges in the world as some people fed up with the violence tend to find peace of mind. The neo-pagans have respect for all and the desire to participate with other beings.Bithi appreciates this and has the pantheistic view which takes her to the lap of Nature, often.The folklores attract her for this reason.

“Should I call my grandparents neo-pagans?” Bithi asks herself, considering their sustained love in the 50 years of happy conjugal life. She knows they aren’t bothered about their respective monotheistic religions they’re born in. Love’s their religion, and she inherits this from them through her parents.Nizam’s a humanist and nature worshipper like her. Love dominates his thought and action. She isn’t sure of Ankit about this aspect of life.”Maybe, he’s different, it’s better I shouldn’t think on it,” she argues. Nature remains with her always, even when she’s on her wings.(Next to follow soon)