There is hardly any Bengali on the planet who does not get nostalgic around this time of the year. How can I be an exception?
As August crawls to mid of it, from nowhere lanky supple Kash stalks wave to the breeze. From August-end Kash blooms in white plumes everywhere. From a distance, they give an illusion of foamy waves.
There starts a magic in nature. Rain and sun play hide and seek. In between sky gets as blue as possible; the sun in its shiny best. Puja is in the air.
Mohaloya invokes puja spirit with its impeccable rendition of songs and Sanskrit shlokas. With “Jago tumi jago, jago Durga”, there is a strong message to the artisans to complete the colouring of images and the remaining decorations as only a week is left.
The intervening week gallops as Panchami strikes. Durga images are brought to pandals on trucks and lorries. The dhak beaters line up at station and Curzon Gate where puja organizers hire them from.
The first stroke of sticks on dhaks pulls out a fountain of joy and sorrow from the inner recesses of mind. The joy is for heralding a celebration; the sorrow is for those ones who no longer are here around.
From sound systems of a local puja pandal, songs of long past are played. You get wistful about the gone-off days that give a brush to your soul like a fine dust of ever-flapping butterfly that gives a tentative slip to your impatient fingers as they lunge for it.
The day when you set your eyes on a red-ribboned girl who let her cascading hair down starts getting alive in your mind. Wherever she moved on puja mornings, your eyes secretly followed (at least you believed so) as dhaks were beaten in frenzied rhythm.
Where is that girl now? You start your search roaming in your mental world.. “Moner janala dhore unki diye gyachhe/ Jar chokh take aj mone pore na..” – the pandal now plays Hemonto Mukherjee.
You heave a sigh. Moments are real. Objects fade. The girl who peeped through mental window in your boyhood had faded over the years. The stir she gave to your mind remains as living as ever. So the search is on. And it continues. Because mind has its own meandering ways to follow: Tora pabar jinish hate kinish, rakhish ghare bhore/ Jare jay na paoa tari haoa laglo kano more…
There is utility in futility. Your mind revels in it. Because it loves mirage, not the desert of sands.