Cohesion

Beyond the carnival of all mundane thoughts and ideas that we indulge in everyday, lies a story. A story that we rewind every moment and then again, wishing that the people and the fables and the dreams in it come alive. We indulge in the weightlessness of our hopes and right then life decides to pass by. To the onlooker, the tiny block on that insignificant street of Kolkata’s mellow escape was as irrelevant as the crawl of a spider in a forest, not knowing that the little woven intricacies of chance had already bound the most unlikely three digits of the world.

The morning chai escaped into the winter fog as Aurobindo sat across his screen that Saturday. The dust that camouflaged him and his office had long ago shrouded every possibility of change or revival in his sullen life. He was sad and in desperate need for more, without knowing that he was sad and in desperate need for more. The dust had taken over the remnant of his soul alongside his mirror by the aged wall, his identity becoming too uneventful to gaze and catch a reflection of. His day began with the crumple of a newspaper and wept on to a dull night after he shut down the blinds of his office. He wished he could stop seeing him. Stop seeing his little boy screaming. He had forgotten that morose was a feeling and not a way of surviving. He crept on and unwillingly skimmed past the entries he had received today. The publication office had swept up with a new wave of reform with the advent of the new head, things were different around as the chairman now made it his life’s mission to obstacle the old man’s lament. He read the last line with a heavy sigh, just this one story among the hundreds that he read everyday contorted his being with a familiar joy. It took him a while and a few rereads to finally conclude that this one was worth a publication and to him his profession. A meet and a discussion later, the author- an apparent NRI young woman from Australia was called upon. The puerile warmth of the read made his day swifter than the others. Better enough to make him notice the young boy that dribbled on a basketball right across his lawn.

Amidst the haze of the clouds up in the plane, Saskia imagined trinkets of her scattered childhood. College and its many existentialist thoughts had diffused every concrete idea of identity that she had gathered the bricks of. The bricks stumbled and danced in front of her in the form of her juvenile past and unclear future. She tried to form a coercive whole with those very bricks, shoved them together to build a wall of assuredness to fall back on. From the sweetness of the Bengali memories to the vast sea of discomfort she faced during the shift to Australia and the ultimate breakdown of her family- ideals of society and permanence of relationships had become a nerve she didn’t want to sense. Melbourne welcomed her wish to numb and in no time she swayed in its cultural hues. Emotions found home in rationality and slowly the wall shattered before she could build it, and up came a joyous, aware and pragmatic decision to live life. Life of a party or lone by the sea, she stopped becoming someone or something, embracing her arts education. She stemmed her fragile self with sincere effort but the nearing end of university was slowly nudging open hidden drawers. Uncertainty blinded her, bringing back memories of what broke apart her innocence. The fights, the sheer hate that she had seen came glaring back at her, hours with her favourite gym instruments couldn’t help her escape. Nights became dense and hair dyes could no longer be dark enough to envelope her thoughts away from all that she had to confront. One fine day, she etched all of her mind down. The turmoil, the tension, the joy of her grandma’s cradle that she could feel even today, the scent of the trees she couldn’t name and the naïve belief that families could not possibly be so ephemeral- she put it all down, only to realise that she had created a memoir. No sooner had she done this, her friends had read it and the result of a sleepless night found itself expanding into a casket of all her cognizance, on its way to India. She could have done it in Melbourne itself, the orientalist destruction of the last pleasant thing she remembered of a feeling called home, could not be projected on to those who couldn’t understand it.

The plane stuttered slow for her in the sky and raced ahead from the eyes of little M who watched it. The scar on his temple throbbed a little harder. People looked at him weird in school. He didn’t understand why so. He was fairly good at what he did; he could solve the math problems right from the board. All his friends in school loved their moms. His best friend cried on their first day at school and he was yet to understand why that happened. He knew Jesus would hate him for saying so, but sometimes he thought being in school amidst all the books and at places where he could be alone was way better than being at home. At least his mom wouldn’t be there. He loved his dog, a stray that he had found by the curb back in the monsoon. Aurelia loved him and he loved how no matter how wrong he got in the eyes of Jesus, there would be her hug to come home to. Like his mom all his friends liked watching movies but he liked collecting coins. He had already found fifteen different currencies through his dad and classmates. Like always he saw Uncle Das walk back home. He had the same sad eyes and his shoulders looked weird. Today there was something different. Uncle Das from across the door had looked at him. Many a times he had wanted to go up to him and talk to him, ask him if he would want an ice cream to make his day better. He had been scared of his mother; he knew it was a sin to talk to strangers. He kept looking at Uncle Sam and his scar got worse and he stopped. He wasn’t supposed to talk and so he didn’t.

Aurobindo looked at the little boy and realized he was falling. His little Abir came running from every realm within his suppressed tears. The fake countenance of not dying from the inside broke apart and he felt the urge to hug the boy. He knew this kid was troubled; he was not getting the best care. He tore apart with every scared glance the kid made towards him. Would he let his little Abir be treated the same way, could he have even in his imagination make something so fragile and scared out of his own darling boy? His trauma was augmented by images of another little girl that lay resplendent in his mind. Saskia, the girl whom he were to be publish lost her childhood, her shot at trust and love as well. What had we adults done to them? He hadn’t been there for his Abir. He couldn’t have been there or made her parents be there for little Saskia. Was he making the same mistake again? Watching the little boy across his house and not doing anything? Was it a greater crime? He watched as the Sun timidly went down right beside and the evening dusk fell upon. The kid still stole glances and with an abrupt halt, smiled at Aurobindo. His inner recess seemed to fall back in place, oh the magic of a little boy.

He looked at the boy and the caravan of his life around him. Aurobindo had lived, loved and lost in that very caravan. Today, he would stitch some of the wounds close .Today he had helped a little Saskia realize a sadness of the past, help it blossom into something that could change her life, he was sure. And today he also made a choice. He looked at the beautiful boy in front of him, he looked and he turned right.