It was late 2006 that I was headed for Chennai to get my throat treated at Apollo Hospital. My voice had been remaining choked all the time for the past three months. Any attempt at clearing it resulted in badly hurting whatever still was left in my voice.
A leading ENT surgeon immediately suggested an USG be done in my throat (those days I did not know that USG could be done elsewhere other than abdomen!) upon my reaching the hospital. After pushing in an abnormally long thin wire through nostrils the head of which carried highly sensitive camera, the doctor was satisfied that nothing happened there which needed demanding attention. At the same time, he was convinced that if I did not take a complete voice rest for a period of over six months, I would lose my voice as pharynxes were damaged substantially.
As a teacher by profession, it was inconceivable for me to go for voice rest for half of the year. So I continued teaching the way I did and my voice continued to react the way it did; actually it reacted so vengefully that I even stopped roll-calling for a while. I landed myself in messy throaty affairs irreversibly. I felt.
Dr. Rahul Ghosh somewhat rescued me with his homeopathic medicines. As he wished, I did not only speak, I could even sing a little. But after a time, the rigours of teaching took my singing voice away completely.
This morning I went to the roof and spent some time with plants potted there. Sun was not still scathing. A mild breeze blew waves in the corn fields in front and shook the tops of plants on the roof.
I ran my fingers over throbbing rakto-karobi and fell to singing “Ato din je bosechhilem path chea ar kal gune dekha pelem phalgune… .” Morning melody was surely catching up with me as I harked back to milder phalgun in rampaging choitro scorcher.
Raga Bhoirobee had woven a spell and I stood on far beyond the time I allotted for myself before a hurried meal and a harried scootering to Gangpur to catch the Burdwan-Howrah local to Memari.
As my domestic shouted from below that it was already past 9.15, the cut-off time for a late bath, raga Bhoirobee shuddered to a stop; and I realized it was not the throat that sang, but the heart that all along voiced a melody.
When I ran downstairs, a cuckoo from a nearby polash tree, started singing madly. Perhaps he got back who he was waiting for so far as another one was bubbling in response from afar.
Who provoked who into singing? I asked myself. My Bhoirobee or the cuckoos?
I could not. Because I could not sing. I replied.
The birds were not heard any more as I reached the ground floor.
Did they really sing outside or here, within the inner recesses of heart? I felt confused as jets of water trailed down my bare wet chest after I turned on shower and it rained incessantly over my panting body.
Nice, really
Nice