pass-the-parcel and other party games

 among the many things i do not yet understand, one is the concept of love. there are uncountable versions of love passed around from person to person, until it reaches me and it just looks dirty and unwashed. 

personally, i have never enjoyed a game of pass-the-parcel. it has a stronghold on my social anxiety.

(music begins)

-

tui kheyechish ?

tomra kheyenao tarpor khabo

eto deri korish roj amar ar bhallagena. tui ekta chingri taste kor

na na ami khaina oof shesh kore nao na

(old man puts a scallop on the edge of a large metal plate)

the old lady smiles. takes the scallop and puts it in a mouth, as she puts down his plate. 

she has rarely received in life. 

the scallop no longer resembles a scallop. at the moment, it has equated itself to gold.

~

রজত জয়ন্তী লিমেরিক -

এ তো এক অভিনব বিস্ময়, শুধুই, কার সাথে ভাগ করি, কোনখানে তুই পঞ্চাশ বছর ধরে , আমাকে সহ্য করে, কী ম্যাজিক অনায়াসে, দেখালি রে তুই 

a limerick, for a silver jubilee -

it is a strange wonder with whom you share time, 

where you for almost for a good fifty years, 

have tolerated me.

what is this effortless magic you have shown ?

~

this love. refuses to leave.

bubble wrap ta niye jayi tutu boshe boshe poot poot kore (chuckle)

this love is kind.

shorir kemon ekhon ?

ekhono shuye ache ami cha ar omelet baniye dilam kichu khete parchena.

i wonder if anyone will make me an omelet when i am sick. 

sounds like a tipping probability to rely on.

i'd rather order in.

-

(music resumes)

-

flowers do not have much meaning unless imparted.

yet, every year, there are flowers on the table.

it is true they have grown with each other. 

like how the twins grow in the womb. 

a battling growth.

this love is a sympathetic competition.

but they are both growing old.

a: i will go mad.

b: ..
a: make me.
b: come.
a: you will turn away, won't you?
b: i don't know. you know where i get stuck. don't ask.

a: this madness. it lives in moments.
b: seems like it, doesn't it?
a: only if i did not belong. to you. to them. you would never have doubted me.

atleast one should be sane.

it is difficult when neither one is.

it is difficult when you draw blood from the other to survive.

even today, she would give him the last piece in the box.

even today he would bring for her whatever he had scoured. 

even today she would let him cry to her of his sins.

even today he keeps her picture in his drawers.

even today she keeps his picture in her wallet.

dear love, i choose you.

in this marriage of equals.

again and again.

i do.

where else shall i find such pain ?

i would rather make my own pain than bear somebody else's.

oh.

oh

-

(music resumes)

-

my hometown is crowded with people in love. i wonder if it can even be called that, in such abundance. seems so easy.

a young girl in a sari walks hurriedly towards the bus stop, a nervous boy holding her dupatta in one hand, an umbrella in another, tottering behind his woman. 

a college boy in glasses gazes at the girl beside him. the girl wears her metal wire glasses at the bridge of her nose, talking to the friend sitting on the other side of the table about important things like literature and contemporary politics. oh how wonderful god is, he thinks, to let me look at her and nobody else. 

ma and i sit at another table, eating dosa. she smiles at them.

the girl wears a kurti with jeans below it. 

ekdin you'll sit with your friends like that and a sweet boy will sit there with you.

at this point in time, i would have laughed at that.

i sit beside the door of the public bus. an audrey hepburn song plays in my headphones. everything looks softer now. 

opposite to me, sits a girl with long curly hair that bushels up behind her head. her ear holds a badly-kept earphone pod. the wire trails down her shoulder and merges with another. 

beside her sits another girl. this girl has eyes that look like they were drawn by the painters of north kolkata. the kind that dips and rises with a sharp end. 

i could draw them, i think. i wonder what song they are listening to.

the second girl has her hair braided in one. there is a togor phool that she twirls between her fingers.

she rests her head against curly-hair's shoulder and closes her eyes.

i film everything else but them. 

let them be an idea that people don't believe in.

i stand in line to buy a bracelet, that i will eventually tear up for the beads. i'm not sure i'm supposed to do that.

 in front of me, there is a middle aged man who is clueless. there is a furrow in his brow and he leafs through the glass ornaments hanging from the racks. i get impatient. 

hi uncle, kichu khujchen ?

i was supposed to ask him to hurry up. anyways.

nonetheless he senses that i am in a hurry.

amar wife er jonmodin tai ar ki ekta kichu kinedebo. tai dekhchilam-

i disprove of a birthday gift from a tiny store in a mall. but that's just me.

accha :) kono specific colour ? ba design ? 

the man smiles. 

he pulls out his phone. the wallpaper is of a roundish woman, adorned in a green that, i also did not approve of. but i see his smile. 

i pick a pair of emerald-ish earrings from the rack. i also hand him a bracelet. it resembles one i had gotten a long time ago.

i had tossed in the trash, the love it was given with at the time. i hand it to him, with a hope that it will hold love this time.

the man inspects it. he is clueless, and i find it sweet. he thanks me again and again, and puts a hand on my head.

he leaves hurriedly, to go home to his sweet round wife.

i don't want the beads anymore.

i go home.

-

(music resumes)

-

a girl prepares a meal for her exam, yet it is a boy who is on her mind. she picks out flowers from a bouquet to give him something to keep. to see how much she loves him.

i wonder if he'll ever know. how much it meant to her. 

boys are stupid like that.

another girl finishes writing a notebook. she smiles as she remembers his lopsided grin. it'll be half a year. the boy often pops up in the window beside her. he gives her a paper cat. 

i smile at them.

i hope they get married one day.

the girl opposite to me sits in patience for a boy who is eons away from her. i have not met anyone as patient as she is. 

this love is infantile. to kill it is nothing short of a sin.

-

(music resumes)

-

this section doesn't have what you are looking for.

when the packaged parcel falls in my lap, i don't know what to do. i don't think i even have that kind of love in me anymore.

she sighs. 

she's been through too many of the same stories.

i examine the parcel handed to me. 

i shall drive the love away.

i'm used to watering the plant more than it needs to be. 

i don't have nice stories. no anecdotes.

all of the love is just mine. 

i don't think people want to read how much of myself i've given people.

i have paid for pain in kind.

i sit with the parcel. 

i sit with the love that surrounds me.

i sit with the fact that none of it is mine.

i sit with the fact that i should never have asked for any of it.

their laughs blends into the background.

the parcel keeps on getting passed.

i step out of the circle

and nobody sees.

the author should never ask to be in a story. 

she cries. for a long time. it is hard to realise that the self is right. 

from afar she can spot the home her mother could not build. the one she could not keep.

the house she sits in remains unfinished.

perhaps she too,

can never keep a home.

keep a heart ?

-

Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

 

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

 

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

 

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what its

name is, is

 

nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

 

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

 

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

 

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

 

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it

go,

to let it go.

-mary oliver, in blackwater woods.

-

0 - what did you learn from all of it ?

h - to beg.

0 - and ?

h - to know my place.

0 - good.

h - am i this in every universe ? 

0 - there is no other universe. this is it. somebody has to take the fall, h. that's you.

h - oh.

0 - i'm sorry.

h - i've heard too much of that in this lifetime. 

-

                                           The Wounded Poacher (1881) - Henry Jones Thaddeus

      (i shall be the one to bear your pain, poacher. i shall bear the guilt of murder and i shall be the one that saves you)