The collateral existence

Growing up in a society where the literary world and the world of realism played a centrifugal role is certainly to spawn a generation of miscegenetic ideas and 21st century is no less. Here is man, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, caste, strata or nationality, ruling since aeons with ace time attesting to his existence. With every passing age, necessity has been the mother of invention, mankind evolved but a man's heart and mind have hemmed and hawed when it came down to the existence of his counterpart, woman.  

 

Not that I am a feminist, however, I do proclaim shooting up on the edifice of Bengal Renaissance.  This afternoon, while viewing Ray's Mahanagar, for the nth time, I was wondering women still are herded to a survival by the herdsman where they deem the place safer and seamless from the perplexities of life. Let alone working on a square platform, she is "raped" by man for her very entity since the day she enters this world, she is "raped" by man for accessing basic health care and education, she is "raped" by man given to a marriage where dowry, in the veneer of a tradition abiding wife zapped up in the partisan societal fabric, is a harbinger of wealth and domestic servitude.

 

So when you hear the news of rape in media now, happening all over the world, the angst is obvious for women of all stratum, educated or ignorant, religious or asthetic, black or white. The very morale of such activity lies in the fact that man seem to completely enjoy crushing a spirit born free whose bodyily essentiality is defined and articulated only under his thumb rule. So when you hear about religious laws sheathing women from contributing to a nation's governance and collective policies, "I have a dream" speech commemorating 50 years of Martin Luther King Jr's March on Washington signify a waning fervour in 2013. So what if a commoner giving birth to a baby boy in 2013, he is baptized as a prince to be. The blood that flows in his body is royal, his lineage truncated to paternal only. So what if a blast ripped through a bus carrying female university students makes the news headlines in 2013, let us count the hits on our social media platform we have by spreading the word to the world lapping it up with the indiscriminate fire attack by the militia on the hospital building where the injured were taken into. So what if the Indian currency plummeting, the showbiz world is feasting on the box office collections of 'Chennai Express' both in India and abroad. The emotional quotient at the cinematic climax, set at a remote village in the southern part of India, toyed with a woman's sensitivity of not being heeded to in the 21st century laves the hearts of millions and mints money pivotal to the field of commerce.  

 

Just so while writing this piece, I receive the news of an expat's wife, our families live in the same building, praying not for a girl child, time is not deathly quiet. Crossing the longtitudes and latitudes of the world does not necessarily imply that you start ignoring your ancestry and their age-old institution of belief who had bequeathed us patronage in furthering the ancestral tree that takes root in a man. I feel the vibes soft-pedalled by the expat's wife - the societal stigma associated with delivering a girl child. Stoking up the fire is her quiet plea for help. She called up to consult me in putting up a plan to set her domestic chaos straight when she leaves for home on a mother-to-be break. Men love to be cosseted so much that they simply tend to forget that with marriage comes responsibility - both financial and moral - and need more than two shoulders to lift the millstone. We women are proud to be hanger-on. And yes this of course exudes peace in domesticated lives.

This is quite apparent when the world is fixated at Syrian crisis; the first lady of Syria, toned in grandiose lifestyle, is far from the media glare. Well her husband is there fighting at the front knowing all too well that she and her children can retreat to a safe haven anywhere in the world courtesy money, power and influence.  

Watching 'Mahanagar' this weekend I mustered all that is to take beyond the film is to preserve the treasure trove left behind by Ray for our children and theirs for the collateral existence of women is likely to perish only with the extinction of human race and not anytime soon.

Harvesting happiness: The parable of concrete jungles

Harvesting happiness: The parable of concrete jungles: Every morning when my eyes reach out for the first rays of the sun, the pair has to go beyond a humongous building, to seek the light of t...

The parable of concrete jungles

Every morning when my eyes reach out for the first rays of the sun, the pair has to go beyond a humongous building, to seek the light of the day - the vast expanse of the sky, peeling itself out of a cantaloupe, spreading its dewiness aura over the universe. I sincerely imagine everyday that the gigantic edifice vanishes by some witchcraft. My heart gladdens at this very thought of drawing in the iciness and the sparkle of the day's break minus the median.

 

A childish thought indeed. Nontheless I am not playing foul here as the façade is on the verge of completion, so uninhabited. There is no cause of panic to set in the mind of the readers thinking that the building blocks might come tumbling down causing a severe damage to lives, property and neighbourhood courtesy an earthquake or a twister. I just pray for a fresh start, the morning ideal, before the city and its strait-laced life joggles in twitching my inner peace.

 

The life beyond imagination slips into reality. The tea making machine robs me of the second opportunity of my senses from settling on the tea-leaves brewing in the kitchen spilling around the aroma of the raw flavour. Setting the stop-watch the rush hour is followed by morning ablutions and breakfast. The school buses honk in rigour for the children who gradually open up from their foggy senses. The transportation league of the city's vista darts on the fitted well-planned roads and highways at the first siren of the day's crack. Moving on to expressways leaving behind the maze of sustainable skyscrapers to find its destination to aviation and port terminals in a bid to unfold its vision to new frontiers. 

 

The uniformed educated dyed-in-the-wool human race, managing to read newspapers and sipping cuppa on the way, barges in through the doors of their productive corridors trying to hit a sixer before an empty audience. The not-so-educated ones, entwined to a city's zing, too prods on to their mercantile hubs, digging into iPhones, tablets and a number of high-end gadgets and applications on their way.  The city folks' tight-lipped demeanor falls off as the day languors to weariness, feigned excitements and incitements to push harder. 

 

Do not be guided for once by the bird of good omen that the nutty city do not cross the doors of domesticity. Those who stay at the houses for a range of reasons smartly connect to the world through social media, the mélange of ideas, knowledge and thoughts, stories, images, art and culture teaching you the act of sharing, liking and disapproving. In a nutshell I do not have to know who my neighbour is, whether thy neighbour is alone and in pain and that is not important. The strategem of a city infested class is to run the extra mile. For example, when the world is hounded by what happens in Syria, albeit you might not be able to spot the country on the globe nor for a single day in your life have left the city haven, yet I should be abreast of the loss, sufferings and the misfortune befallen on the city of Damascus and participate with staunch comments on the social media. I am sure no-one heeds to my voice but my hits on the social networking circle takes me to the pinnacle of pomposity.

 

Pouring at the fashion, wellness and lifestyle magazines, gaming at playstations, music and tennis lessons, swimming sessions, cooking and dancing classes, tutorials (for additional income of the teacher and exclusive knowledge of the student), a beeline to grocery store at the fag end of a hard-laboured day, dinner and homework, after-dinner egghead work, minimal sleep hours - the city labyrinth devours the whole day and night (weekdays) sapping the physical energy and mental strength of humanity. A crafty stoical system working silently. Weekends are reserved for frantic city tours, shopping malls, cinematic multiplexes, attendance at parties punctuated by manicured expressions and discussions or a visit to the doctor or a vet if you are a proud owner of a pet.

 

I grew up in a world blanketed by Thakurmar Jhuli, Abol Tabol, Aesop's Fables, Wuthering Heights and popular classic English literature (books, of course) and not animated flicks or games uploaded on YouTube, and learned or listened to adda, the rachis of collective wisdom and intellect of one's fraternity. A herculean task for a heart whose soul lies in the  choruibhati lunch (the Bengali cookout) playing Rabindrasangeet or adhunik bangla gaan (courtesy Hemanta Mukherjee, Shymal Mitra, Dwijen Mukhopadhyay, Manna Dey) or Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Richard Wagner  to name a few on gramophone or radio sets but mind makes a mental note to turn out for a colleague's kid's birthday party at Papa John's nearby outlet later this month to be feasted on processed and canned food and aerated drinks. Greeting people at swanky places and confabbing over coffee at froufrou cafe hubs, exhibiting trendy outfits and splurging on gifts is deemed to be dapper in a 21st century dolorous city.

 

It is already the end of the first week of September, the autumn is in the air. I need to ring in my jogging partner who takes her dog for a walk not to leave him astray on the pruned grassy tracts of the park. She has been notified by the municipal authorities twice erring the city landscape by virtue of a inoculated pet dog. A civilised city and community has no place for undesirable elements. Two peas in a pod - deleting my account of quondam days for fear of defiling the city's young, dynamic, innovative and tech-savvy minds and the welfare organisations expunging the stray dogs from the city map for fear of rabies. 

 

The cabalistic city is a perfect hideout of human civility. Welcome to the jungle!