Confidante

By Haimanty Dutta Ray

January 3, 2022

Dear Diary,

As you are the best friend that I can ever have, I’m going to make an honest confession. I am in love. With myself. Don’t you think that it should be that way? I mean to say the loving one’s own self part of it… Do you know why? I have just discovered an old photograph of myself from our family album.

Ma is holding me in between her legs as she posed for the camera beside a road railing in the Mall Road of Darjeeling. She’s her hair spread over her shoulders and I am looking up to her. When I found the photograph, I held it to my bosom for a long, long time. It is a black and white photograph. Baba used to click all our photos then. That was before I took up photography as a hobby.

The New Year dawned with a good news – God’s decided to keep me alive! The Covid scare and the explosion of the virus all across the country, have left us with just a single prayer hanging from our lips – ‘SPARE US !!” My NY resolutions included reading more books, spending more time writing ( as I am doing now) and helping Ma in the kitchen more frequently.

January 5, 2022

You came into my life as the rightful successor of another diary – a red leather cloth-bound volume – that was gifted to me by my parents on one of my birthdays, when I was still a teenager. The Dairy of A Young Girl by Anne Frank was also gifted to me alongside. Till today, it remains one of my favorite books. A diary is a girl’s best confidante. Anne Frank called her diary by the name – “Kitty”. I’ve not named you yet. But I’ve written on the very first page – MY DIARY.

The NY started not with a bang, but with a whimper. The Covid pandemic has left even the doctors at their wit’s end. People are dying as though they’re chicken feed. Boro Mamu was admitted to the hospital with heart ailments, contracted the Covid virus and passed away a few days ago. He, though an octogenarian, had been the one to whom I turned to, for any principal advices. God rest his soul in heaven!

The government has been advising all of us to stay safe by wearing masks, carrying sanitizers and maintaining social distancing. These are the three SMS es that are ruling this part of the world right now.

January 7, 2022

Ma gifted me the other day with a packet of three exquisitely wrapped, delicately perfumed soaps. The box had the picture of a girl wearing a beige-colored kimono. By the way, when Baba was alive, he had also gifted me with an ankle-length garment. He said, “This is a Kimono. This is what women in Japan wear.”

Baba. In 2005, on an early mid-May morning, he passed away to the other world. But do we forget the memories of childhood so easily? I had been closer to my father than to my mother. But over the years, the bond between mother and daughter has grown in a mature manner.

Yesterday had been the birthday of my favorite Indian cricket all-rounder, Kapil Dev, on whom the biopic ‘83 is based. He had led our country to the historic Prudential Cup victory in 1983. As the pandemic has imposed curbs on viewership of film screenings, my intention of seeing the film, may perhaps remain unfulfilled for quite sometime.

January 9, 2022

The reason why I have decided to write to you on alternate days, is because I want to treasure these papers, which are so special – smooth, pristine-white and almost melting to the touch.

The Covid-19 and its mutants are spelling havoc for the city as they are doing all over the country. My younger cousin, who is a doctor by profession, is under home isolation. He’s tested Covid +ve. Thousands of doctors and health workers are getting infected which can spell doom for the common people at large.

Sir Sidney Poitier of To Sir With Love fame, died yesterday. He was 94. I had seen the film many years ago and can still remember how it had touched my heart. He was the first black American to win an Oscar. Our paper, The Telegraph, carried a scene from the black and white film in its front page.

Today is a Sunday. One of my friends from my college days, is down with fever and cold. She is trying every diagnostic entre to have her RT-PCR test done. But as there has been a mad rush for these tests here, she is not getting any slots for booking. Hope she comes out -ve and gets well soon!

January 11, 2022

Tomorrow, January 12, is now being observed as National Youth Day. It is actually the day when Swami Vivekananda, the visionary, was born. I can still recall the day when the annual sports event in our school used to be held. The open ground adjacent to our school was, and still continues to be, the Deshapriya Park towards the southern fringes of the city. As with many schools of Kolkata, our school being located near a main thoroughfare, lacked a playground within its complex.

I was not very good in sports. But I always participated in the events. In fact, it was compulsory for all the students to have a go. There were prizes to be grabbed. Now when all the school students are studying in an online atmosphere, I am reminded of the English proverb – All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy. Sports is a very important part in a school’s curriculum. Today the temperature dipped quite considerably so far as our part of the country is concerned.

Ma suffers from an orthopaedic arthritic pain. She’s into her eighties now. I sometimes find myself sitting back and wondering at the rapid way that time’s flown. Bye, for now!

January 13, 2022

Our house at Santiniketan – Tagore’s Abode of Peace – completed twenty five years of its construction. We had built it when Baba was very much alive. Today as we celebrate the silver jubilee year of our cherished home-away-from-home, with colored glass windows, it seems the house misses his presence as much as we do. When the two of us sang Tagorean songs like “Neel Digante Oi Phooler Agun Laglo” [ The flame of flowers have sparked off in the distant azure horizon],both the flowers and the skies, during springtime, joined in the chorus. Now, whenever we go there to spend a quiet and peaceful weekend, I can almost perceive your presence by my side. Me and the house miss you a lot, Baba.

Today, being a Thursday, is the day when I water my most dear bamboo-shoot plant. The place I got it from, had advised and instructed me to water the green stalk and leaves, just once every week. Bamboo shoot is believed to bring good luck and positivity into the household they are grown in. It just about adds that desired patch of much-needed greenery into the corner of my house. Green calms the soul and soothes tired eyes.

January 15, 2022

Yay! I just won a creative writing competition. Reflections.Live, a platform which promotes writing from upcoming writers, conducts a contest every month with a given theme. The same for December had been Art. The participants were supposed to interpret it in any which way they found suitable. I had decided to write an article on Baba’s works – water color paintings in particular. The results were announced and my article was selected as the 1st among the 10 with “Exceptional Writing Skill” category. Overall, I ranked 4th with a score of ninety six percent! Can’t remember a time when I had scored that much amount of marks, except in the Mathematics paper in school!

I have also decided that I’ll write for the first half of every month and devote the other half to the pursuit of my other literary ambitions. That include compilation of a poetry book that ideally would have hundred poems, of varying lengths. So long! Till then…..

By Haimanty Dutta Ray