Thursday, November 13, 2008

My Story

My story started 57 years back in a district town of West Bengal Midnapore, well known as a birthplace of many Martyrs and freedom fighters. I was a born left armer but the elders in the family disliked my unusualness and I was forced to become a right armer. But this forceful physical modification could not change my mental condition. I was different in many aspects from the rest of my family members. Unlike other members of my family I suffered from various illness, mostly arising out of intestine and stomach disorders. My father was a police officer and mother, a housewife. Upon his transfer we moved almost every 2nd year, from one town to another. The residential bungalows were big, surrounded by garden. In most of the days I used to wake up in late mornings when my brothers and sisters left long for their schools. The big kitchen where my mother used to spend most of her times, was at one corner of the house, far-off from the children’s bedroom. I did not have much strength to roam in the garden for long. My aunt(my father’s widow sister ) often used to visit us. Her stories were about our ancestors who drove away the Marathas and later on took active part in freedom fighting against the English. These stories coupled with my medications ignited my dream sequences. However my aunt later on corrected them “ No .never they fought on elephants back, it should have been cavalry and gun carriages. You know…” As age passed by the fight scenes of the dreams changed into the interactions of various characters among themselves with their social, emotional problems and beliefs. Some of them exists truly others I have never seen. I tried to narrate my dreams on my own but with fewer freedoms. They protested strongly in the next dream and finally I had to become their stenographer. My profession of geology and mineral exploration gives me a scope to come across various parts of India and abroad. In this page of blog, I shall try to present some of my stenography dictated by the various characters in varied background of nature. The characters vary from tribals to high-ups in the society but all of them are what they are. I have no scope to alter them.

3 comments:

Sucharita Sarkar said...

Isn't it interesting to see how most of us have life stories which depict journeys and migrations, from village to town, from town to city, from city to bigger cities, and maybe also to other countries as well? We traverse distances in time and space and then the farther we go, the more we cling to our memories?

I found your story very very resonant.

Anonymous said...

Your stories are great! Do you write poetry? And have you done a course in Creative Writing?
Smita.
www.smita-poetry.blogspot.com
Visit my blog & tell me honestly what you feel about 'poetry'.

Sharmistha Guha said...

Will be looking forward to more stories inspired by your myriad experiences. The tribals...the remnants of what we were like, untouched by the thousands of years of human 'advancement' to the high and mighty of society will surely be an interesting combination!