Beautiful beings

They say your dwelling’s mighty and high, splendid enough to turn the heads of folks who go on rides. I grin from ear to ear, looking at their wonder-filled gazes. My penciled eyebrows rise in praise, complimenting their accolades. I think that I am showered with luck, wearing the best silk clothes, gold and jewelry. The Almighty has indeed blessed me.

People submerged under poverty in a lane, not far away from my reign.I look at them from my sky high nest, their faces caked with mud and dirt; they have made a bat out of a sturdy chunk of a tree’s trunk and are whooping every now and then. I look at their beaming faces with the wonder of a child. 'Catch it!' 'Out, out!' They say every now and then.What is so fine about their state that they run barefooted in the barren rice field, so drunk in love and glee? I wonder and look down at their tattered rags somehow held together by brown threads and little multicolored squared togs, their legs lined with many scars of long forgotten mishaps and unhealed scabs and their hair dusty and lanky and dirty-brown under the sun’s rays. Poverty is indeed a sad affair, I muse. Perhaps their happiness is only a fleeting boon.

A marquee is to be made out of bamboo-sticks and fancy-garbs, on the eve of worshiping a mighty goddess of supreme strength who can shoo away all evil fiends. After lots of hustle and race, great artists come to our place. They work under the blazing sun and sweat drips from their face but they carry on, apathetic of their state. They also work on twinkling nights and on nights cloudy and dark as an intense lake; the festive day nearing at a blistering pace. When the themed pandal made out of shells and beads is nearing its conclusion by my gate, the people of that lane rise and shout for a marquee to be made. They bring bamboos on a big truck and dig them at a barren place, a gleeful sheen on their face. Some youths climb on the bamboo-ed maze with skillful ease. Is monkey skills still in-built and coded in their genes? They stretch a huge rain cloth on the top of the pandal and then fix some fancy garbs with polished nails, their mouths whistling a tune of joy. Some girls stitch a garland of papered stars, some others color a board to beautify the place. A big round man shouts ' Hurry up man! We must finish all chores by dawn'. His wife puts her hand on waist ' This is a sacred privilege. Do not mistake it for a simple errand of a day'. 'Hear, hear!' shouted the crowd at once, all merry and happy in their place, they sing and dance all night long to build a pandal with their hands. A splendid temple stood at our place and there in their place, stood a small thatched tent like shade, a bit skewed to the left. But they worshiped and ate and sang, enthusiastic all the same. What is so good of their state? I wonder and look at my silk blouse and their simple ways.

On a bright sunny day, in the midst of august a knobbly kneed man and his bird- breasted mates, stand there around the Roy’s well deep pond. A large bucket, full of water by their feet and a muddy net in grubby palms. Two men swim into the pond and two others stand on the narrow shore. They whoop and dance in ecstasy, when they catch a fish either black or grey and then stand for hours with hungry gazes when they catch neither a fish nor a crab. It goes on all day long, till an orange glow paints the pond and the sun went down the horizon. The Roy drums their breast and boasts of their generous ways. Rumors flies that the pond was a waste and the fish were infested. Some others say that the fish were in excess and did not have space to swim or breath. And though the men at our place have both fish and meat on their plates; the highlights are all about the ‘Roy and their infested pieces’. However, neither the knobbly kneed man nor his mates ever complain about the fishes that they ate; on the contrary they bow and help whenever called on for odd jobs. What’s so golden about a bucket full of fishes that they kissed them so? I looked at them from my sky high nest and wonder in vain.

**

I walk the streets and taste the goose best known in the land and converse to people both foreign and native to sign contracts and land. Polished heels on polished surface with polished and manicured nails, a smile plastered on all the polished faces as we cheer for our latest gains. A millisecond later we no longer smile as we know this balloon like gain may be punctured by a tiny pin like edge or we may lose our hands in this crowded place. So, oft I raise the liquid-escape to my marooned lips and glide to a world of clouded palace.

So, days and months and years pass by and I wake on my feathered bed, I brush and bath and make some gains and come back home like a troubled guest. On such a day as I brush my hair, I gaze into my troubled gaze. I stare, I know not how long, maybe minutes or hours or days and ask myself what is this unrest, 'Why do you look like a rotten log?' The ‘mirror-image’ laughs a tinkling little laugh ‘You know not girl what’s the case?’ Two tears run down my face as I get up from my place and go on with my ways.

As I sit on a sky high balcony and sip my coffee to ease my unrest, I notice a sweeper at length, sweeping the place with an airy pace and whistling away a long forgotten tale. I look at him full of wonder; a smile creeps its way on my face. For it’s been years, since I left my sky high nest and the beautiful beings of that nearby lane. I have realized long that though they had no branded stumps or bat or a place to play, they had played together with zeal and clay; though they had no artistic pandal or a Hilsa at hand they had done everything united all the same in their own happy ways. Their state was sad but they were beautiful beings.