I wake up late because I go to bed very late. Today should have been no exception. But it was. Something very soundful beat on my ear drums. I could not help jerking up off my solid sleep in its “midnight’s” reverie. I looked at wall clock. It stolidly enounced fifteen minutes past seven.
I got down from bed and lazed up to the window opening up a prospect of a green spread that was largely overtaken by greener shrubbery on the southern side. The morning sun, dews in combination, made them look intoxicatingly fresh.
The sound approached me closer criss-crossing buildings surrounding mine. As the sleep was shaken off my eyes, a dhaki was seen coming in. A huge dhak was slung across his back and he was beating it, bending little, with two sticks. He was collecting whatever the households could offer: old shirts, trousers, punjabis, pyjamas, lungis, alms, money – as he did every year, the very next morning after the Dashami night immersion – as Ulhas residents did every year, bidding farewell to the Goddess for the year, dancing to maddening beats of dhak.
Doing a studied round in our lane, the dhaki went off to another. Slowly he went out of sight. The sound of dhak that held the quiet of Ulhas morning captive moments back, became a far- away lone fade. It lingered on for a while. Then it too had gone.
I came back to bed, hoping to resume sleep as I am used to do these days. But I felt a shooting sense of forsaken overtaking me and replaced the much needed sleep. I tossed over. But I tumbled over a halted sleep.
I gave up. I sat up. I looked around. The pillow lay bruised, the side-pillow mangled, pillow-cover creased, bed-sheet pleated. Mosquito net canopied overhead.
Durga immersion was done under strict police supervision across the state yesterday against the backdrop of Corona epidemic. The news-reader was reading out in precise words, neat diction and distinct voice in morning radio news “Sthanio Sangbad”.
Shubho Bijoya: The wait is now for another year. A mobile message from friend greeted me.
I picked up the mobile from beside pillow and kept on looking at the forwarded message. It was colourful and decorative.
Another year. I murmured. And looked at the wall calendar that was swinging vigorously as the ceiling fan was making it dance to its windy fury. The days and dates on it looked blurrily racy.