Blending the ethereal and the tactile
Primarily an artist, I work with colours. Yet I paint rarely, and write even less …and whenever I do so, in both cases, I go into a spell…as if possessed by some creative inertia… Most of the time I am fine without even having the least urge to paint or write unless when I am forced to, when I feel solid silences creeping in and lying low between words and sentences… and there is no other way I know of, that could express and explain the meanings of all these…
Painting and writing are a kind of ‘monologue’ … I break silences, I talk to myself…
And as a non-conformist, I more or less follow and think the nature’s way... like the sky, the waves and the meadows think and behave…These are only apparently monotonous and have a vigour and variety that is unsurpassable and does not really conform to any set patterns….Their variety can only be described by their seasonal whims….
Brought up in Kharagpur, West Bengal, I studied English Literature in the University of Calcutta and my paintings and writings reflect my understanding of the real and unreal universes of human relationships, struggles, and survival.
A great chunk of me, therefore, comprises my own real and unreal existence. As things are, I have been continuously thrown into a live-pattern, quite varied, like nature itself, with its own facts and fantasies.
…And, therefore, I had to continuously seek ways to stay alive and then try to choose the best, between crass realities of life and magnificent moments of fantasy, in order to exist.
And in order to stay sanely poised, I had no choice but to use colours and words as tools of rationalization….
My experiences of working with blind children and the disadvantaged have definitely added a further dimension to my perception of life through exploring the senses that blend both ethereal and tactile.
Painting and imaginative writing are not different for me, except in form…. both are like vast barrier-free ranches that allow me to construct, deconstruct and reconstruct and then again and again decorate and redecorate my inner landscape, like never before.
The Unreal, First Flush: A Monologue
1
it was a dream
a dream that had some of us
and had many that were never there ...
it had our stories
and mostly those stories that did not happen
it was about all those that we were
and mostly what we were not and could not be
it had our enormous struggles, our majestic crossovers
and it also had our uprisings which never were and never could be...
it had all our leaps that could not happen...
and our walks through centuries and millenniums, that still define us ...
and the manifold inertia that did not let us move on ....
there were trees that stood undaunted
and there were ones that were not there
and some that had possibilities of germinating into new universes of parallel hopes ...
and there were houses, fields, roads, lanes, canals
all, all our days and nights stuffed within windows
within a routine span, within a known clock ...
and there were so much outside orbit, outside time
also much that was absent and beyond ....
there were equivocal kings and captains, their hands conspiring...
lungs breathing out venom, hearts cooped up in dark chambers of their own minds...
there were raging swords, cannons, guns, missiles
shattering the sky into fragments..
and there was that one unbroken sky, sheltering all, equally...
and then, there were canons and guns again, but silenced forever ...
and then, there were smiles, now unbroken .... a lot of it still incomplete ...
and a lot of more smiles that could have been
it was just a dream
2
and some dreams still stretch
over fountain edges
... wake up
tiptoe across silence
skylight pours in
powdered sun
and gold scatters on
layers of dark
in familiar shapes
3
I watch streets narrow into curve-roads and traffic flower into sparkling cities...
here, gardens lead to in-door greens
and the sky, battered blue walls stretching across our overused balconies....
I think of your eyes flowing into mine, an open sea, beyond our bodies...
4
and on a summer noon this road seems blank …vague footsteps lead to rooms without our shadows walking along …
are we dead? you and I….have we grown a waste inside?
can we work up a ruthless storm …and rub some sand on our skin?
does it hurt?
5
once there was another sun
and its elaborate red was ours
smell of dawn in shiuli-spread
quiet light, slow….
stealing through crisscross
of our green embrace
into benumb air …
into benumb universe …
and then you woke me up
through ages of sleep
6
you and I felt a universe
running within us
taking us through its orbits
and we felt its new light
wrapping us ...
rolling us in its aloofness
7
my fear of heights
and your unending
zeal for flights
into highs of all sorts!
......that was our game, rather sport
....a tug of war…
and you won, every time....no matter what!
and so... you tugged me along...
we crossed lowlands, highlands….
rested on plateaus, our bodies soaked ... in fluid green ...
you held my hand tight like a father holding hand of his little girl
and led me on to the zenith of somewhere you knew best…
then pointing out to a tiny dot of red, miles below us
amidst the unending evergreen spread
you kissed my forehead
a vermilion dot shone…
it still shines….
8
it was not easy to find us
we often took a random train
to somewhere weird ....
where no one went…
or into some roadside shack, absolutely humdrum
we needed no beautiful spot to inspire us
we were in love…
9
it was then that I started wearing the red...
too much of it…
the red flag infusing our spirits
it was your colour... our colour ...
at least, we thought it to be...
....and almost sure of its truth
we changed our routes…
we let it lead us ...
10
we stayed there long enough
on top of that high….
you facing the dark curves
and I the moon…
I am still averse to darkness
but now I know, I need the black
to make my blues deeper than
they used to be
now my canvas grows
from a fathomless deep
and I carve it out to give it a shape
of your elaborate face
blueing out from a rock-slate mass
did I ever tell you, you were my sky?
11
I watched you inspire many walls
this wall stood dull and morose for years
and it had the vibrant spice-market
just next to it ...
... I often squatted there, on the pavement
watching you change the inert, inch by inch...
turning the bricks into words, and then into a full length talk ….
fragrance of cinnamon and clove hung in air ...
we felt drunk with thoughts of a big change
and being part of it, made us feel like heroes…
12
the mosque was perched at the corner
of the canal
it had a pale blue dome
twin culverts ran on each side of the gate
and they were whitewashed …once in fortnight…
we sat on the left side, on most days…
your back resting on mine ...
our warmth heating up the November sun
you read from the Quran …
“…. And we created you in pairs…’
13
there we were
you and I
and the temporal twilight around us
holding us captive in its eternal maya
yet the fading crescendo of azaan
set us completely free
14
a progeny of light... smiling cold...
you wore the moon on your sleeve
on special days...
and my white bougainvilleas were in love with you
it is just that I happened to feel a perpetual flow of passion in me with you around…
just that the white suddenly resplendent with all the colours I love ....
your blue denim faded at the sides...and your spotless cuffs...
you wore them always white ....
your eyes vandyke-brown and a certain colourless smile...
my white bougainvilleas flourished in clusters of anguished-lust
and through the cavern of unending crave my mind spun a song ...
your collar unblemished....unbuttoned at the neck....
where my playful eyes converged ...
and down that valley, so vocal with shadows
my laughter travelled, fearless ... right there ... ran into swift evergreen folds ....
white bougainvilleas throve ....
15
…but often your eyes galloped away into distant stars
and I felt your thirst rise ....
for something beyond this land...
beyond this time ...
you and I searched different doors
yet our habitat was one...
16
again those spotless whites .... so enamouring...
I plunged deeper into your voids....
into colours latent in them
countless motifs, myriads shades
rose and fell ...all over me ...
silence waited in quiet demure folds ....
so I had to plunder this peace with lipstick flowers
and add some noise ...
17
we were in love
and that was enough…
I floated like a cumulus
on you …
and like the sun
you burnt me with your anguish
when I met your eyes
I saw in them a wild chase...electric ...
through exotic, unexplored Texas
or were you still running amok ...
through helpless lanes of bondage
in a seventies’ nightmare?
.... your eyes were an endless swim
through Danube ...purpling into beds of Euphrates, Tigris
blacking into dark of every evanescent truth
18
you and I dreamt of things
not quite alike
you dreamt of beaches
running parallel to our humdrum lane
and I of mountains
rising steep around our routine backyard
you often stood there
camouflaged in verdure smoke ...
and I took casual walks
for stolen kisses, and more ...
we dreamt differently
and our truths were quite different too…
I actually was hooked on to vivacious beaches…
and you, in reality, craved for misty mountains…
19
probably that is how the mist crawled into our corridors ...
crept into the rooms we lived ...
probably that is how our mirrors had an overpowering blur ...
20
once ... our backyard was woven in sun and shade
incessant buzz of bees shot through quiet afternoons...
and air heavily flavoured with over-ripe jackfruit
whizzed around in lonesome groves
you and I wrapped in fragrance of pomelo-blossoms
found ways to rise above our fears ...
our bodies wore a demure green ...
...and in those verdant embraces, under an open sky
we found our new ground ...
to be in love was freedom
The essay and the poems are part of our Poetry Special Issue (January 2022), curated by Shireen Quadri. © The Punch Magazine. No part of this essay or the poems exclusively featured here should be reproduced anywhere without the prior permission of The Punch Magazine.
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