My attempt at looking at issues of displacement. To be uprooted the way Onu was and shunted to another place altogether...for someone as young as him, I'd guess that it would be a confusing and terribly painful thing. I drew slightly upon personal experiences here with regards to the darkness and the feelings he writes about in his letter to Mishti, mostly from my first days in hostel 😆 Yes, I'm still a little bit of a darpok, just like Motu himself 😳
It starts of with a dream and moves into his confusion with the house - because in his half-dream state he still thinks he's in the house in Calcutta!
In the interests of this storyline, Orindam and Nupur live in a hi-fi ground floor space of their flat somewhere in Kew Gardens, Queens, which is in NYC...since I've not been to US myself, some of what I write might be inaccurate and I'll need help here and there to make it more authentic I guess. My apologies for any mistakes made in depictions of NYC here!
Btw, thanks so much Deeps and Simran! Deeps been such a long time since the two of us have been together on the forum 😃, so glad to see you here!!
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Ma!
Hands. Soft, fleshy hands dusted with flour, brushing his cheek...smoothing his hair...so feather-soft that you wouldn't believe the same woman could crack your ribs just by hugging you...
He did not see those hands as much as feel them, a soft haze blurring his vision such that he couldn't see her face.
Somewhere behind him there were voices...one deep and booming, yelling at Orindam uncle for coming to the mithai shop...one that tinkled like windchimes, only this time chimes were clogged with tears...one that sound that sounded like a never-ending horn that said "No Dada to hit me! No Dada to hit me!"...he could have sworn that at intervals the sound of a sharp thwack against the head could be heard, and wondered worriedly if Robi would bleed from all the self-hitting...
Those hands still caressed his face as he heard a voice that sounded like reeds in the wind...that sang words they had once taught each other but had never understood.
"Ma...move your hands," he moaned into the softness of his pillow, "It's dark and I can't see..."
"Na re baba, a little bit of darkness won't hurt you, what am I here for?" Laboni's voice was like roshogollah with only a tinge of syrup, soft and full and grainy...
"Come on Motu," one of the voices behind him said, "What'll you run from in the dark: ghosts? More like they'll run from you!"
"Dada," the next one said, "I'm here! We'll battle the ghost together ' you, me and your enormous tummy!"
"The ghost isn't going..."
Her fingers left his face, and he could see her plump, nightie-clad body...but no head.
Her head was gone.
"Ma..." he wailed...he didn't know whether to turn tail and be frightened, or to cry at her plight as she held out her hands for understanding... "Ma tell me who did this..."
The white of the house was swinging over his head like a pendulum, swirling and swivelling over him and Laboni Ma's decapitated self until all he could see was a violent riot of colour that rolled itself into a ball and swung itself straight at him --
"This is why we told you the dark is good..."
The coloured ball was coming his way, threatening to explode his head out of oblivion too --
He woke up drenched in sweat. He opened a groggy eye, but it was of no use. Because the room was dark.
Pitch-black dark.
His mouth went dry. These sheets...this bed...they were never this soft.
Had Baba decided to give him new ones?
No, never, not on his life. Baba would settle that matter with a few "over my dead body!"s.
He shook his head vigourously and looked to his right. Surely Robi...
No bed.
Somebody took away Robi and his bed, and left him with a bed too soft to be his.
Still sweating, he got himself out of bed, trying to pave his way through the darkness, wondering if such pitch-blackness would eat him up.
"Ma!"
All he'd have to do was walk his way down to the hall...he could do that with his eyes closed. And then towards the door, and then outside where dewdrops would still be glistening over leaves, the night air would smell of jasmine and the moon would recede every so slowly from the sky...
He was shivering and not just from the cold.
Just a few steps and he would see if his Laboni Ma was alright...
He bumped against a coffee table that should have been in the dining hall...and felt his way to the door --
How could he have reached the door without having taken the steps? He hadn't walked downstairs...
His body was saying something about this place, but his eyes - crusty with sleep - paid no heed.
He struggled to open the door, and whispered a prayer of thanks when it opened. Oh, to feel the touch of a light drizzle on his skin...to smell a whiff of rain -
But outside, it was cold as death.
What was going on?
"Ma?"
No one.
Where was their fountain? Where were the sprigs of jasmine and champak and hibiscus that his mother had loved so much? There were flowers in different colours ' in blue and pink and yellow...but they smelled so different...
"Ma?"
Since when had his own house become such a stranger to him?
Any moment now she would come out from the house across the street, Mishti behind her smirking at his obvious fear.
Any moment now they would drive the dark monster out of his brain and have a good laugh doing it.
Any moment...crash!
He'd hit his toe against a pot that should not have been there and fell.
He stayed there, unable to move, the hazy vision before his eyes clearing up in the brink on dawn, his body fat not enough to battle the cold.
"Watcha doing outside at this hour, sonny?"
She was not plump and she didn't not speak in rapidfire Bengali. Her voice was like a rusty tractor and her arms were thin as creepers and her face was white as paper, but her eyes were glowing with concern.
Just like her...
"You'll catch your death of cold out here, young man."
I don't care, he wanted to say. Even death by flu would be better than looking back and facing the truth that the house behind him belonged to people he barely knew.
The woman saw the tears in his eyes and understood.
"Come in," she said, signalling to her flat, "I'll get you some milk to drink and then send you back home."
This isn't home! He wanted to say, but his mouth felt like someone had stapled it closed.
She wrapped him up in a blanket and gave him cookies that she said he should dunk in the milk. Then she stood back and watched. To a boy who had associated mothers with the magic of touch, the older woman's distance baffled him.
"Where's your mother?"
He looked up, confused.
"You were outside the house, screaming for her. Where is she?"
He would remember what he said for a very long time to come.
"Gone. She's gone...and I don't know when she'll come back."
Her eyes softened, and she offered him another cookie.
She was somebody's mother too, he could tell by the hint of tears in her eyes.
He jammed his fist against his mouth, hoping he wouldn't cry. Not now, not in front of someone he barely knew.
She sent him back to Orindam uncle, whose face looked like thunder and who was doubtless going to back to the other room to check if his daughter was out of bed too. Any wrongdoing she ended up being a part of would undoubtably be his fault, even though he'd hardly met her yet.
Go back to your bed, Uncle said.
Your bed, your room, your curtains, your home. Lies. Lies lies lies.
The only thing that was his anymore was this darkness.
He wanted to run away, except that everywhere he went he'd wonder why the tables faced that side of the wall and why they cooked halibuts instead of hilsa and why the kulfiwallas weren't across the street and why Kew Gardens was not Calcutta...
September 24th, 2000.
Mishti,
Nothing is mine here.
Not my bed. Not my kitchen. Not my apples or chocolate bar or clothes.
Not my shower. I try avoiding the bathroom as much as possible because even when I'm alone there I feel so exposed.
Not my place. Not me.
I feel alone. So alone.
Motu.
P.S: Please PLEASE go to your bedroom and see if Ma is okay. I dreamt that someone blew off her head last night and I couldn't fit it back on...
P.P.S: I wish I could tell you to hit Robi from me but I can't. He's all alone in my room and I'm all alone in someone else's room...
He chewed on his pen and wondered if he could bear the truth of what he was now going to write.
P.P.S: I'm glad you will never see this letter.
Edited by Elizabeth Darcy - 14 years ago
Indian Idol 15
