DAYS GONE BY!!!!!
---- Bhaskar Ray
7:30 AM. Papai is awakened by the deafening sound of the alarm on his I-phone. He has
intentionally selected the weirdest of alarm tones. There’s not even a slimmest chance to stay
awake if this goes off. Ignoring the cravings for life’s smallest pleasures of lingering in bed for 5
more minutes, he jumps out of it. 7 years of job life, and the monotonous routine has taught him
those 5 minutes of bliss could turn fatal in case there’s no follow up alarm. As like his
innumerable counterparts caught in the web of social networking, he starts his day glancing
through the Facebook updates and WhatsApp messages. A smile runs across his face as he
scrolls through quickly through the regular drama that unfolds in his WhatsApp group consisting
of his childhood buddies. People, who in absence of Facebook, would have otherwise, faded
away from his life, has liked his profile picture. He diligently performed his social responsibility
by quickly liking some of the updates from his closer friends. He still can’t believe how the
cellular phone has become the most important accessory of his life. He remembers his first tryst
with mobile phones began in the 3rd year of his college life in 2006 and things have changed so
much that it’s hard to determine how life was without this gadget in his earlier life.
Dropping his wife to college he returns in time to start his day of work. Grabbing a sandwich and
a cup of tea, he maroons himself in front of this partner for the rest of his day –his laptop.
Working from home when he is not travelling, skype calls would be his only way to meet and
greet colleagues. He goes through his emails and looks up the calendar for his planner. There’s
one meeting at 10 followed by one at 12 and few more post lunch. It’s gonna be a busy day.
Staying just a few seconds extra on the calendar attracts his attention to the vacation planned by
his offshore team and a sudden awakening strikes him – Durga Puja is just around the corner. It’s
not that he was not aware of Puja approaching but looking into the calendar kind of magnified
the realization.
There’s nothing to blame him for the ignorance though. Sitting at Dallas, thousands and
thousands of miles away his homeland, there’s no indication of the Puja coming by. There’s no
Pujo Pujo gondho in the pollution free Texan air, there’s no hustle in the streets, there’s no chit
chat among the laborers or any sound of them hammering the nails into the puja pandals. His
mind races back to a tiny town in the eastern most part of India, Agartala, and the streets of
Kumaritilla Govt complex where even the thought of Durga Puja approaching had an all
different meaning and where he was born and brought up among traditional Bengalis. Just few
weeks before Puja, it’s the time of the incessant power cuts, he fondly remembers. This is the
time of the year, when trees are cut all around and power cuts are enforced to ensure uninterrupted coverage during those 5 days. Those 5 days there would be no load-shedding. During
his initial days, he used to blame God and his parents whenever there was load-shedding, even
the thought of that brings smile to his face. Morning expeditions of collecting Shiuli phool,
waiting eagerly for new clothes, to bring home the idol in thela gadi, fasting before Anjali,
pandal hopping, dhanuchi dance, Dashami bhashan dance, sindoor khela and unending adda- and
other uncountable memories came flooding back. He tries to remember the faces, some are