আজ গুবি ছবি
আবেগ সবেগ সবই
ভাবছে সাপটাMusic, Lyrics, Vocals - Anandajit Goswami
Song Available At -
https://youtu.be/C55aipjRHkE
“A Burnt Bat To Ash (2004 – 2019)”
“When does a body turn to ash” – Is it only when it is burnt? “When does an ash turn to a body” – Is it only when the ashes are joined, condensed to form a bat! The science of pyrolisis suggests it is not possible but magic realism of heart wants it!
Sketch of A Burnt Bat To A Quilting Ash: Anandajit Goswami
The storyline as the title suggests can move from the body to ash or from ash to body. In this case, the body is actually a CRICKET Bat. A Cricket Bat with a logo of BDM written on it. The BAT could have moved from 2004 to 2019 and transformed into an ash. On the other hand, the ash could have moved from 2019 to 2004 and ended up being a CRICKET Bat. Hence, the CRICKET Bat is a symbolism, metaphor of emotions in a forward, backward journey of time and space with an individual persona called – “Mahesh Chand”.
Mahesh Bhai or Gower or Gawar as we called him in our cricket parties, matches, team meetings, get together, intermittent hangouts in “Aunty’s Chai Shop” outside the fourth gate of IHC was both a burnt bat and an Ash for many of us.
He was a life – simple, straightforward, with a quintessential smile and always focused to be played with a straight forward bat. His locus of life was – “cricket matches, any distinguished performance by anyone in any cricket match on TV or at the Patchy Green”. His eyes were simple and if it was praised, he would give a shy, newly wed both bride and groom smile saying – “Kya Baat Kar Rahein Hai”! The same eyes were always happy to serve for the team and with a glass of water or a cup of tea or coffee for researchers, guests of TERI in the meeting rooms and within the Board Room with esteemed members. Our Mahesh Bhai from the day one became the big helping brother in the cricket dressing room for every new comer. He would cordially introduce a new comer to other team members by saying – “Yeh Kaptaan Hai, Yeh Vice Kaptaan Hai, Yeh…”. And the introduction would continue with allegories and description about every team member to a new comer. Starting from this introduction to helping a new comer in the cricket nets, helping the new comer in physical and mental pain from cricket match bruises, non -performances, he was always there. He would just come forward; pat your back after getting out on a duck and say – “Koi Baat Nahi, Ball Bahut Acchi Thi – Aapki Galti Nahi Thi”.
From 2004 – 2019, this journey sustained with no inconsistency. In many cases, the docile, Mahesh Bhai or Gower would also intentionally entertain cricket colleagues by dancing to the tune of – “Parda Hai Parda” from the film – “Amar, Akbar, Anthony” by Manmohan Desai. His dance style, acting, rasa, abhinay during the same dance performance had touches of a drag artist often with a little, gracious lasciviousness which would add a different gender dimension to this – “BAT”. All our heart burns, ashes generated from the loss of a cricket final would be healed selflessly by – “Mahesh Bhai/Gower/Gawar” or the “BAT”. Often he would intentionally be a subject of a grouped banter, leg-pulling, just to quench our heart burns, heart ashes, with his light weighted straight bat – “BDM”. Sometimes, he would also be naïve, sentimental, touchy with the banters and would stop coming to the cricket matches. So the “BAT” would be very much like a PET DOG inverted to be a GOD and would have to be worshipped, cajoled many times to seek his arrival on the cricket ground. When he would come back, he would again childishly serve and heal us with his passion for CRICKET, BAT, BOWL, TEAM MATES, and THE CRICKET GAME.
The BAT or the GOWER or MAHESH BHAI would happily serve drinks as a twelfth man to his younger mates during the course of 2007 – 2018 while giving away his glorious number two batting position for upcoming cricketers of the cricket team including me. The game of cricket in this timeline had changed towards power hitting, athleticism but his grace, class of humanism, decency, gentleman ship did not go even though he was approaching his fifties being a part of the cricket team. Like a drag artist, he would show to all of us, the colours of life, art, science, gender, sexuality, wisdom for putting water to our burns, ashes in between 2004 to 2019 back and forth in time. He was doing this to prevent the conversion of a bat or a body to ash or an ash to a body while many of us like me were rising and falling through the tides of time, life in the forward time journey from 2004 onwards. Often, when I was away from Delhi and then again would come back to Delhi and meet him , GAWAR or BAT or MAHESH BHAI would only heal , make me and all of us smile with his gender neutral small gossips, bitching which were simple and harmless. The gossips, bitching were ordinary but yet extraordinary to define him, us and all of us together.
But then, 2019 came. It came to many of our lives with a shock. On a weekday, suddenly around 7 pm, an untimely, unexpected call came from a cricket colleague bringing a spine chilling wave to our backbone. The shock was so much that some of us had to rush to his house from our workstations or homes on that day. We reached his house. The name -plate of the house had written – “MAHESH CAPTAIN” on it. The nameplate summarised everything about him. As we reached, there was hustle and bustle going on. Police, local people, neighbours, relatives were there around his house. Murmurs were going around amongst the local people while two constables were busy talking amongst them. Some of us were not allowed to enter the room of the house where he used to stay. However, one amongst us could manage and the description that came out was not routed in our wildest imagination. According to that description, GOWER/GAWAR/MAHESH BHAI/BAT was dead inside with a suicide note on his bed. His head was toppled over the open lid of a SINTEX water storage tank which was kept inside the room. The numb, cold body was very accurately placed in such a position with a suicide note on his bed. The letters of the suicide note were unorganised, trembled, chaotic, disturbed with a jerky and shaking tendency. Many of us like me could not believe that our BAT had so many ashes, burns inside himself during this timeline of 2004 – 2019. We could not believe that GOWER can be so GAWAR to claim his own life by not being with the stream of his lifeline. His persona on the cricket ground was of sportsmanship with selflessness, fighting and positive spirit with full of practicality and wisdom.
“How Could A Person Like Him Do This?” – The question haunted many of us till his last journey to the Nigam Bodh Ghat. The peculiarity of his body position in the room, unnerved eye expressions in many during his last rites, rituals in the crematorium only exacerbated the speculation about the normalcy of his death. The silent gossips amongst the local people accompanying in his last journey as a dead body on this Earth added layers to our speculation about the mystery of his death backed by a suicide note on his bed. The cricket team members along with his family members contributed in the completion of the cleaning, washing of the deadbody before it was put up for burning with fire-woods and logs. His deadbody did not have the class position to deserve the electric crematorium of NIGAM BODH GHAT. When the fire was just going to be put on his deadbody, a favourite, newly bought BDM Cricket BAT was kept above his deadbody by Sanjay (the former TERI cricket team captain during the peak years of Mahesh Bhai) and all of us who were his crime partners in the cricket team. Then, some firewoods, logs were placed above it. The fire was put on. His face was covered with stacks of logs, woods, firewoods. Gradually, nothing could be seen as the fire burning started to reach its peak by being accelerated with constant intrusion of air, ghee and other necessary burning catalysts. Few cricket team colleagues were still standing while the body was burning. I squatted down with an agog.
“Can I still see the BDM BAT?”
A question came on my mind. I thought that the BDM Bat was still visible. May be I was hallucinating or my mind was not ready to let go off the BDM Bat. Twenty Minutes passed by. Gradually, everyone was deciding to leave the cremation spot; the crowd was disbursing, dispersing too. A smoky smell of carbon, ash was actively odour able. I was not in a mood to leave the spot. I was still hopeful to smell the odour of the – “BDM BAT” and the character “GOWER”, “GAWAR”, “MAHESH BHAI”, “PARDAH”. The sun was setting in around 5.30 pm as time passed by. We all had to finally start moving towards home. We became homeward bound with the fabric of the BURNT BDM BAT and the Ashes Inside…………!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------******----------------------------------------------------------------
Yeh Hasraat
Deti Hai Dastaak
Yuhi Chala Raahi
Der Ho Saahi
Thaher Ja Tuun
Saanson Ki Khushbu
Tujhe Ek Aarzoo
Meri Bataun
Ke Silwaton Main
Tujhe Dhundoo
Phir Usme Bheeg Ja Tu
Mil Gayee Baarish Ki Guftagu....................
চাঁদ যখন হবে ছাদ
তখন শেষ হয় অবশেষ
JOKHON BIPOD DEKHI DURBINE HAAJAR
TOMAR APAR EPAR OPAR
SHEI POTH PARAPAR
DOKHINNE DUAR
PROMAD GUNI PAHAR PROMAN
KOTHAO KHARI KOTHAO SHOMAN
SURJOKE BOLI AAMAR PORICHOY
SHE BHEBE BOSHLO SHE OJOY
PURIYE DILO KHANIK JHOTKAY
NIBHIYE DILO HOTHAT NAGORDOLAY
EBHABE DEKHI DURBINE HAJAR
TOMAR OPAR EPAR OPAAR
When in the education sector someone today gets a degree of "B.Ed" or "M.ED", it is supposed to signify or mean - "Bachelors or Masters" in Education. On the same light, the title of this short story will mean that MASK - "Ed" means - Mask or Masters of Education.
However, this short story began on a Wintry morning. The morning had a storm. But it was not a natural storm induced by climate change. However, the epiphany was about climate change on a platform called - "Twitter" creating a storm. Action to save humanity through Twitter via a storm was launched with all its facets. While the storm was going on, some new conspiracies to plant a new bomb or a digital or a civil war was going on all across the world. The TV set was showcasing all these images and collage of news in different channels of a little shanty space of a JJ colony in New Delhi. A middle aged husband was scrolling through the news channels by lying down on the bed in a drunken state. At the same time, a girl of age 16 was sitting on the ground with her knitting, weaving weapons.
A little girl had not gone to school on that day as there was a Twitter storm and it was raining outside. The school was closed that day. The little girl had pledged that on the day of the Twitter storm, she would not go to school; but would rather knit a hand woven mask. She was weaving the mask for her mother. The mother of the child was staying on the same shanty and was working as a daily maid or "Chutti Bai" in the various quarters near the JJ colony. Many of the houses were skeptical of the maid as she could not buy a good properly protected N 95 or medically prescriptive mask as it was still costly since it was the early days of Covid 19 in India.
The cost of the masks were gradually going down due to bulk production but the cost was still not enough low for the mother to buy the mask. Due to the absence of the mask, the mother was fast loosing jobs from the nearby houses of middle class households who were telling her not to come in their house to work. The daughter could not bear this pain of the mother. Therefore, on the day of the Twitter storm outside, inside and everywhere, the daughter decided that the entire day she would not go to school but from the morning to evening she would only create one mask as a gift for her mother through her own hand. A mask which would protect her mom from COVID and from job loss. The Twitter storm deepened, violence erupted, peace was sought for everywhere within and outside the minds of people but nothing could stop the daughter from weaving the mask. The mask was being made out of a wool which she had silently got through some of the money she had saved earlier. The mother after the day's work returned back at the shanty of the JJ colony of New Delhi. The mother was getting ready to be beaten up by the husband who had given up job sometime back as he lost his job of driving auto-rickshaw which got closed due to lockdown. The husband's only job now was to beat up the wife after being drunk all through out the day once the mother or his wife returned back to the little space after a daylong work.
On the day of the Twitter storm, the mother entered the house, but before the husband could greet her with violence, the daughter welcomed the mother with this Mask she had woven the entire day by knitting and by not going to school. The mother accepted the MASK from the daughter and kept it close to her heart and smiled with tears of joy. The daughter smiled back. The mother said - "This is my true MASK of EDUCATION - which can mean both MASK - ED or M- ED".
The day of January 19, 2021 is just not getting passed into my unconscious and subconscious thinking. Well, how can it go! This is because this 19th January of 2021 has created an unending, as well as brazen memories and flashes. I have scratched out some of them onto the scrap-house of my Facebook Account Profile Page in the following order -
"1991 - November 29, Gabba, Flashbacks - A 10 wicket victory for Australia (Javagal Srinath's Debut, Paul Reiffeil's Debut)
Personal Reflections - The 11 year old boy from any background working hard by getting up at 4.30 am everyday at the age of 11 doesnot need to leave cricket but can just look at siraj, saini, natrajan, shardul, washington sundar, rahane, rohit and the list is unending as the history of the page has just started. "
The above scratchy notes to myself were immediately also countered by some other scratches in the Twitter world which threw open certain facts - "A quote by Kunal Kamra - Congratulations Byjus on Winning Border Gavaskar Trophy". The quote was followed by the glorified statistics of the Twitter world highlighting - 2.6k comments, 3.4k retweets, 49.9K likes.
I ponder in the yonder of my lost childhood in the leftover grasses of Vivekananda Park, Deshapriya Park where I could see the day at the age of 11 when I went for the last time for a cricket training session in Kolkata following India's massive defeat at Gabba in 1991.
My images are gradually stopped in a time machine by the mind, space and solemnity scavenging statistics of - 2.6K comments, 3.4K retweets, 49.9 K likes. I thought, 2021, January 19 was all about a brave (B), bold (B), bruised (B) Indian team fighting out cultural supremacies levelled by sports. A leveler where the same dressing room of a national cricket team is shared by an auto driver's son in deep agony, pain and loss matching up with the abdominal sprain and pain of another ace pace bowler who hugged the minority boy from the lowest strata of the society at the end of the match singing together in Marathi, Urdu and Hindi. It was all about bashing and thrashing the gender stereotyping of toxicity through the tears of the same minority boy of the auto driver son who could cry publicly when the national anthem was played before the Test Match started.
I thought this Gabba is a hope for every 11 year old lad who wont have to leave cricket when they will look onto the stories of Washy, Shardul, Rohit, Shiraj who fought the childhood adversities of their social positions and made it to the final stage making the country proud. I thought this victory was all about a cinema and a script and a magical fairytale which can easily be a fiction any time. At the same time, this victory was also about the fact that there is always a truth too within fiction which is far more magically real than the fiction itself. For two days after the victory I was lost in the ocean of this magic realism of this victory which only told me before the celebration of 23rd and 26th January that nothing better than this victory can happen. It showed us the promise of castelessness, equity, new gender norms and every little word that we have written in policy documents, papers, books, preached verbosely in class lectures; and yes, the 19th January result of Gavaskar - Border trophy had all of it. But then the effervescence of this lostness suddenly got halted by the twitter statistics.
I saw that at the same time while I was lost in my own effervescence of the 19th January victory of India at Gabba, the Twitteratti was also lost in its own effervescence of 49.9K likes of a post by a standup comedian on the same magic realism of the victory. The question which made me come out of my ecstasy was then - "Who are the people in Twitter liking the statistical seducement, seduction in a dark, comical, commodifying, conflictual labelling of the Gavaskar - Border trophy win?"
The more pertinent question was to think - "Most of these likes are coming from an Indian and then why are they liking it?"
Does that mean, the fellow country men prioritized the business subjugation of a country's team and certain norm wins over the cinema created by the victory itself on 19th January, 2021.
The more unnerving question is - "Why the same people from the same land are prioritizing the Twitter quote over the celebration of an auto-driver's son, a poor lad's win from Chennai, a bruised body jaded against the red canon balls from Australian seamers."
Does that mean, it is actually a clash between the dreams of the son of the autodriver, poor lad from Chennai, Mumbai with the 49.9 likes in Twitter and Byjus as a brand is just insinuating this clash between the 49.9 likes and the dreams of the minority boy to a new extent? Does it mean that my ecstacy is actually a naivety?
Because the same cinema for which I was lost for few days also meant a clash between the 49.9 representative likes of an Indian society and the tears of a human being bashing gender stereotpying, cliched irrelevant, old cast and class narratives of the same country. Will it mean that tomorrow again when say another time - Deepa Karmakar wins another Olympic Gold Medal for us supported by Go Sports Foundation, the twitteratti wont celebrate her tears after the win but will celebrate more a similar post on the sponsorship with a stand up comedy pun to it.
Will it mean that, when tomorrow, a cricket coach will try to mentor a young lad about bravery, courage, parenting, motherhood of protecting a team interest by narrating how - "Cheteshwar Pujara during the Melbourne and Gabba Test of 2021 was taking the ball on the body as the unusual pitch cracks were immaculately used by Pat Cummins to snick the gloves and the body; and to avoid the risk of getting out and exposing the tail; thereby highlighting parenthood, courage, bravery, responsibility, duty, team before an individual ", the young lad will rather not listen to the coach but will open his or her smart phone and retweet a stand up comedy post on the same act. The same Gabba, which brought to me a scrapbook of memories and ecstacy before 23rd January celebration of valour and courage also trembled, unnerved me with some uninvited tremors of sneers, mound of darkness of a societal dream, magic realism and its fragmentation with the inoculation drive of a deep politics of global investments, buying and selling at the backdrop of deep data and technological penetration into our lives. I don't know whether some day if next time when we stop having tears with a medal win of Deepa Karmakar it will turn out to be the biggest stand up comedy of comedians as ourselves at the cost of a new virus whose vaccine is still not there. Fortunately, the Covid-19 Vaccine has arrived and I will strongly hope for the other vaccine to arrive soon before it is too late for the human society as a whole.
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