Memory loss and college ke woh din

It was a bright sunny day, the time around 11 am, there I was standing in front of my impressive college campus, reliving all my memories of the years gone by. It was three years since my passing out and since I was in the city on personal work, I decided to drop in the college to say hello to my teachers and take a trip down memory lane. My reverie was suddenly broken by screams from another end of the college, as I looked yonder at the commotion, I spied on a girl frantically waving her arms at me & calling out my name. Perplexed whether I should smile or run, I stood my ground and waited for her to approach. When she finally did she enveloped me in a great bear hug and kept saying wow! its been so many years since I saw you. It dawned on me finally that this was someone who knew me and obviously had a great liking for me. I smiled, laughed and did everything else in my capacity to evade my confusion regarding her identity. Luckily for the non-taker in me some people talk enough for both myself & themselves and never have I been more pleased for that fact. It at least gave me time to gauge that she was a junior and was now in the final year of her Masters. I racked my brains to recollect her name & how apparently she knew me so well and loved me so much ( apparent in her bear hug & all the muaahs I was being showered with), but woe betide I was absolutely blank. Of course being the smart cookie that I am, I asked her all the right questions about her studies, her parents, her classes and complimented her on her apparent weight loss( that's always a safe bet with girls) and how she looked so smart..you get the general drift. Just as I was about to excuse myself from this genie..in the college, shall we say. She pounced on me with her delightful 80 kg frame. In Assamese she blurted out that I must come home with her for lunch. My mind went ticking..err where exactly was this home & then my expressions froze! Lunch..and I didn't even know her name! Wow....If you have to know the Assamese are a genteel race, warm and exceedingly loving and this species seemed to have taken a rather tremendous fancy to me. I cleared my throat and offered to give the vaguest of all excuses, because my mind was still ticking away her identity & frankly speaking I was so embarrassed at my BIG time memory loss that I had no words to compensate. All the while while she somehow dragged and sweet talked me into coming home for lunch with her parents, I seem to be literally carried away with her. If you thought this was the end to my embarrassment, you haven't seen nothing yet! Having entered her home I was warmly welcomed by her mother, who said her daughter would keep talking about me and she was so glad to have finally met me. While I pouted niceties and started the same routine of how pleased I was too..etc etc..You get the drift again I hope. Finally some 'Me' time both mother and daughter went inside while I made myself comfortable in the living room. To my joy and delight, I saw her bag carelessly thrown over the settee. My eyes gleamed, surely I would finally find her name in one of her college books. All my confusion would finally be laid to rest. I edged myself slowly towards her bag, all the while looking out for any movements in the curtains in the adjoining room. Finally I was near the bag, I grabbed the flap and flipped it open....Maitreyee ba! ( Ba is elder sister in Assamese) she screamed!!! " Please don't read my notes, they are horrible, you would be so ashamed of me", I sprang back from the bag as if it were a reptile. "No no, I was just admiring your bag", I said. More chatter, lunch and good ol' college days, when I was there kinda talk later, it was finally time for me to go. The meal was great I suppose, but sadly most of it went in figuring out where I was and what I was doing there. Its been good many years since the incident and I still do not know the name of the girl who loved me so much, who's mother was hospitable enough to feed me. I guess social grace and presence of mind saved me from making a complete fool of myself which I felt anyway..some obvious's are better left unsaid I guess!

Without boundaries

My thoughts flow,

Free from the bondage of place, body or destination-

They seek to speak the language of unison

Amongst habitats many and unknown

Perhaps tomorrow when we are one

The world shall finally speak

The language of the 'US'

Without the boundary of boundaries

© 2011 Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury

( Image courtesy Google)

Beauty is a brief season

Beauty is a brief season

And the soul an eternity in time

If your love for me is truly ..true

Love me without the seasonal hues

The hair shall fall like Autumnal change

And spring bring forth wrinkles new-

The lines..a creak shall sound only louder

Where Green be mixed with Grey

© 2011 Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury

( Image courtesy Google)

The prayer of a four legged creature

I am but a four legged creature

Tethered on an animal called man,

Killing and skinning are words so new

That this best of the lord’s creation has taught us so-

We learnt not the art of hating that is so in vogue today

Teach us not the ‘art of living’ beneath a mind so guile-

Big dreams do people dream, But we have urges so few

For some such mundane pleasures,

That would fill our lives, with joy unbound and true

To be as free as the bird that sings,

It’s, swan- song from the skies above.

To move with total abandon, not to fear,

No more threats not even from one self

To be as light as the wind,

To be like the soaring imaginations--------

Not chained in some body’s backyard or crouching in the wild

Free is what we want to be

Not a fossil for history in time..

Treat us not like worn ornaments, shorn and worn of display

Freedom from those nasty minds

Is all that we ask for today-

© 2011 Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury

( Image courtesy Google)

Humdrum Life

And when I am naked, of giving all I have

Still I would search for the lack of the ‘I’

If love were so easy as lust were to ‘He’

Happiness would be mine, forever mine……

© 2011 Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury

( Image courtesy Google)

In one breath I- The Allah, the Chrish, the Radhe Shyam

In one breath I am the Allah, the Christ, The Radhe Shyam

Swallow me if you will and still I shall sing O Hari O ghanshyam...

Stash me not into closets deep

Seek me within a heart that sleeps

And when it awakens from a slumber so deep

The Allah, the christ they are still within your deep

© 2011 Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury

( Image courtesy Google)

To you these verses I give my daughter

To you these verses I give my daughter

In the hope that ..

When tomorrow you shall perhaps truly live

And see me as the I that were

Your memory and it's fragrance of me

Like ancient and delicate China

Be preserved in fossils sweet

And waft into the mind a song...

Terrific and yet so deep

In thine fresco s of fragility

Of a love that's but divine


These verses of mine shall remain-

All but Yours and Mine -

And then you can mull them over

And find the ME in vain

In pages of serendipity and love

A mother never refrained

© 2011 Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury

( Image courtesy Google)