My Greatest Energizer.

Today is the 8^th of December. Ten more days to go before the start of our winter vacation. And I am heading down to my ancestral home at 41 Deblane in Kolkata.

The very mention of the address does something inexplicable to me. Makes me nostalgic. Lots of memories come flooding in. Like the time when Ma was alive. I always felt and still do the same that my Ma was a great lady. And beneath her external simplicity, she had some kind of charisma or a magnetic force that pulled me towards her whenever I had the chance.

I remember once I was granted just a couple of days CL (Casual Leave) for attending the Puja at my ancestral home in Kolkata. As I walked down to the FCB (Food Corporation of Bhutan) for the Phuentsholing-bound local bus in Tsimalakha, I already felt tired and tensed up. The bus came at around  a quarter to eight. I took my seat and prepared myself mentally for the long journey ahead. I could not book the train ticket earlier and going down to my hometown without a reserved ticket, in the general compartment was going to be one heck of a travel.

The bus, in the meantime, had turned left at Zero Point and the driver turned on a trendy modern English song. All on a sudden a song sung by the Jamaican Rockstar, Bob Marley, came to mind:

I am sad to say, I am on my way,

I won’t be back for many a day,

My heart is down, my head is turning around……..

The bus ride to Falakata from Jaigaon was anything but eventful. Anyway, finally I boarded the train from Falakata and as expected, I had to travel in the general compartment. But you know how it is when you are out in a hurry to reach some place? One thing or the other keeps on slowing and slackening down the progress and there is not much you can do about it except tentatively  chew your finger nail. By The time the train, trooped into Bandel station the next afternoon, Teesta-Torsa was already running late by some 10 hours behind the scheduled time!

Half an hour more passed by even there, refilling the tank or something. I had waited all along extremely patiently, like a goody-goody boy trying to focus on the lesson being taught in the class, with total concentration, despite the distractions all around. But I could not control myself any longer.

Ma Durga, or rather the image or the goddess, had already been brought to our ancestral home a couple of days before. The sense of de javu hung low in the air. People gorgeously dressed milling around, waiting to receive their near and dear ones at the station, or going to another place with an air of excitement and expectancy. But amidst all this cacophonous celebration, I was getting restless. Back home there was someone else, other than Ma Durga, waiting eagerly for my arrival. Not only my arrival, but for the arrival of every single member of late J.C.Bhattacharyya’s family.

Yet there was no sign of the train ever lumbering out of the station! I kept looking at my watch every now and then. Should I wait for some more time, or should I get off the goddamned train? Time was running out and half a day of my proposed stay in Kolkata, was wasted by futilely sitting in the train.

“Dada, trainta adao chharbeki?” Big bro, will this blasted train leave the station at all?

The man sitting near the window nonchalantly went on munching muri (puffed rice) from his cone-shaped paper packet, before coming out with something like:

“Ki kore janbo dada, ami ki bhagawan?’ How do you expect me to know? I am no god. That put paid to whatever inquisitiveness I had in my mind regarding the train’s departure! Another 7-8 minutes had gone by in the process. And then, then I knew what I had to do. I fled off the train and hurried to the overhead bridge. I have never been very good about locations, but if I took the risk at that time, it was mainly due to the fact that one of my sisters-in-law hailed from Bandel.

As I was hastily leaping up the stairs, two at a time, I dashed against a couple of commuters coming from the other end, offered my excuses before flinging myself into the packed compartment of a local train, which was waiting for the signal.

As luck would have it, the local train was also not much help due to the heavy rush of the season and what normally does not take more than an hour, must have taken more than double the time. Anyway, the train finally got to Sealdah station at around 7 in the evening!

Off to bust No. 45, the inevitable but not for long jam at the fly-over and I heaved a sigh of relief as the bus started plying towards Moulali, an intersection of some seven roads some 15 minutes distance from my house. If I had felt that all my worries were about to end soon, I should have known better. The bus got stuck in the jam for the second time. There seemed very little hope of the jam clearing in the imminent future.

I flew off the bus at the bleak prospect and started walking at a brisk pace through the shortcut, past P.C.Chandra Jewellers, turning right to move along DR.Suresh Sarkar Road, to the familiar surroundings of Deblane. For someone who had left Bhutan the previous day at 7.30 in the morning, and had been out on the roads for nearly 36 hours, without so much as a decent meal during the time, I was not doing so badly either.  

When I entered inside 41 Deblane some 25 minutes later at last, my eyes were searching frantically for my Ma, amidst all the usual pomp and gaiety. Old age had made it difficult for Ma to spend as much time around the thakurghar (altar room) as she normally used to during her heydays. She could not sit for long and was mostly confined to her bed in her room on the first floor.

Overlooking some familiar calls here and there, I rushed up to her room. While removing the shoes near the door, I peeped inside to make sure that the ol’-frail lady was there alright. She was, sitting in her characteristic posture with her legs dangling outside.

“Ma, eshe gechhi.”  I am home, Ma. And then the suppressed tremor in the voice. The voice that brightened my day and lit up my life:

“Ke, Swagto eli. Aai, aai. Eto deri korli keno?” Who is there, Swagato (my nick name)? Come in, have a seat. What kept you so long?

And like magic all my exhaustion, frustration and pain of the past two days were gone in that instant. The basic goodness of that frail, old lady was the greatest energizer, appetizer for my thirsty, hungry and passionate soul. And as I bent down to touch her feet, my mind played and replayed the self-modified version of Marley’s song:

My heart is down; my head is turning around,

Till I meet the ol’, frail lady in Calcutta town ….