An old college trip

The following piece is an old one about a trip to Shantiniketan while as a college student. I wrote it back in 2011 on September, 21^st. I was in the midst of writing my Ph.D. thesis and reading a lot of Tagore’s writings back then. I’ve edited some bits from the first paragraph for this public post.

9/21/2011

It's funny how some memories need to be written about. I’ve been immersed in reading Tagore and his writings and piles of writings and writings about him and his writings but I know not whether I’m reading the right stuff or the right way. How am I going to approach his chapter really. My main self is disgruntled and keeps wanting to go back to Suvro da's chapter and extend it and fine-tune it...I’ll do that after I have some more stuff on Robi-kobi. He identifies himself as a poet and very clearly and staunchly in Atma-parichay. As in his identity. The Buddha is yet to make an appearance. He simply seems to be standing at the side of my vision somewhere and smiling. Yes, yes – I’m mad. You don’t have to tell me. If I can pull this off – then you won’t think or say I’m mad, will you? See? – and I will. I don’t know how exactly as yet – but I will. I’ve been writing yards in my diary too…Honestly though reading his letters and all  – Tagore’s I mean, not The Buddha’s – he sometimes sounds rather barmy – I swear. Eccentric, delightful and strange. Barmy too. The one that I shan’t forget: in one place he tells his niece that he’d rather be a Bedouin than a Bengali (now tell me who does that sound like?). But then elsewhere he muses dreamily if he were to be born again – he’d not want to be born as anything but a Bengali! As for one little piece that he says about little children – I don’t think I’ll include that. Most improper. I’ll forget this later but did you know he wrote ‘boli o amar golaap bala’ at 17 or thereabouts? – You would know of course. I somehow thought he’d been older when he’d written that…17 though. Which immediately brings to mind a comparison – yes, Sir...I can see why my main self wants to get back to the first proper chapter. Anyway, I’m taking a break here. I’m reminded of that old college trip to Shantiniketan. We had gone to Shantinektan for that college-trip, and that trip has been buzzing in my ears. I can’t remember any longer whether it was in the first year or second year. It was probably towards the end of the first year, I guess. No surprises as to why I’ve been thinking of it. It’s been in my head since May and now with Robi flitting about – I’m reminded of it again. But I’ve also been thinking or having images of Manjira flitting through too. I think had Tagore known her – he may have written some poems or songs about her…maybe he did somewhere else. Anyway, let me not spin daydreams here wondering about Rabindranath and Manjira. I’ll write a bit about the trip instead – as much as I can remember of it.

1. There was our old professor and our Stats professor in charge of a gaggle of 18 or so girls. One boy in our class had already dropped out from our batch, I think by then, and the only remaining boy in our class didn't even think of joining the crew.

2. We took the Shantiniketan Express and had reservations and all. I don't remember who actually got the tickets. I know it wasn't me. I had though at some point the evening before our departure bought a bottle of vodka and had carefully mixed vodka and some orangeade into two big bottles. Unfortunately one of them had spilt and made a mess in my bag which I discovered later but one bottle had survived, which I promptly deposited into the fridge of the government lodge where we stayed, very sweetly asking one of the obliging waiters whether I could keep a bottle of Mirinda in their fridge.

3. The train journey was very comfortable and sunny. Some folks had gotten some goodies from home and they very kindly shared their goodies all around.

4. That was the trip when I systematically sought out and made good friends with a girl who had appealed to me in one instant some months ago through her disarming frankness and honesty even though everybody else around had thought she had come across as being plain rude. It was just before the college elections and I’d been going around canvassing for votes and she had said she didn’t see any reason that she should vote for me just because I was a classmate. I made pretty good friends with her during that trip though I must say.

5. An old school-friend I knew was studying in Shantiniketan and I had bored everybody by telling them that I had a friend there, and that I would meet her. At some point, one of the quiet girls in our group of seven asked me whether I had told her that I was coming. No, I hadn't. Did I know where she lived? Somewhere in one of the hostels. Did I remember the address? No. Everybody gave me the look.

6. The first afternoon after visiting the dorm and depositing our luggage and after lunch at the guest house, we walked around through the town just for a walk-around. Our old prof - an absolute favourite amongst his girls - was never allowed to keep to himself. He was always surrounded by some group of girls and he listened with what sometimes felt like a piercing attention – even to something that didn’t seem important – and most often with a half smile and when he talked everybody around listened. Some gaped. Some gushed. I admired him a lot and even talked a fair bit on that trip. He made amusing observations. Now I'm hard-pressed to remember all he said on that trip but there are a couple I remember.

7. So there we were roaming around in the late afternoon, all of us, with no particular aim in mind - a gaggle of girls with one old professor impeccably dressed as always in his regular white dhoti and white panjabi and one young professor also immaculately dressed in her pleated sari - when all of a sudden there were two shots heard. "Manjira!" "Nipa!" and a slamming hug. And so there it was that out of the sun and the blue breeze, I met my school-friend. Both of us were excitedly yakking away, and we hadn't kept in touch as well as we had through our high-school years through regular letters, and so we were trying to get everything in all at once and finally we simply said, ‘we'll meet tomorrow. Yes, we'll meet tomorrow. We have to meet tomorrow.’ At some point I'd managed to disentangle our old prof. from the rest of the girls and had introduced him to Manjira and Manjira to him, and he looking on with much quiet mirth at our grinning faces, waiting for the excitement to abate while realising that we hadn’t exactly planned a meeting. So he asked us to do that with his half-smile on his face since as he put it, 'serendipity will most likely not strike twice in less than 24 hours'. I nodded. But Manjira and I were simply grinning at each other and looked at Sir in between like fools. So Sir made the suggestion. He pointed out that we were going to visit the 'kopai' sometime in the morning so maybe I could come over for a couple of hours during the afternoon after our lunch at the guest-house. That worked fine.

8. The evening was a lovely one as some of us sat and talked with our old prof. out in the open. The guest-house was a nice one, and it had a pretty garden with stone seats and trees and a riot of flowers in full bloom. I believe there was even a playground of sorts with a slide (there was one crazy picture of the seven of us all balanced on that children's slide...). We played dumb-charades, talked about books and Sir spoke and we listened and different stories were shared. There was some conversation about professions and careers and about parents. I wasn't too vocal but one silly and annoying girl said, "Shilpi - tore ma baba dujone daktar - issh tui daktari porli na kano?!" (your parents are both doctors, why didn't you study medicine?!) I had no response to such a dumb question and was mute. Our Sir very quietly said and with a smile in my direction, 'Shilpi can still be a Doctor without studying daktari." I smiled in return. My memory doesn't serve me well about the whole conversation but at some point one bright girl brought up Kahlil Gibran and The Prophet and Sir and she discussed bits and some of us pitched in. Then very late we bade good night to Sir, and departed to our dorm room. The room was hot. The fans didn't seem to do much good. And the mosquitoes were swarming the place. Once most of the girls dozed off or at least weren't casting their prying eyes at us seven, I got the bottle out (which I'd gotten from the fridge) and we took some swigs and some more. There wasn't much and it wasn't even half-way cold and could hardly pass off as a screwdriver but so what. We were doing something forbidden and that was good enough for me. At some point we were boiling in that stuffed room. I don't know how many from the seven felt they simply had to go out and breathe in the open. But some of us did and some, I think, fell asleep like little babies. Out there in the open - the night was still. The stars were high in the sky. A couple of my friends used to smoke back then, and I couldn’t stand the smoke even as a passive smoker because it used to make my throat burn. What happened there I know not. After sitting awhile with them, I borrowed a cigarette from one of them and loped off by myself, found a water tank and sat on top of it, and smoked. I remember the star studded night sky. And I was hooked.

9. By the time I slipped back into our silent dorm room and had a shower and finally went to sleep it was past dawn, and I was sleeping in utter peace and bliss when the friendly breakfast call bellowed in my ears. That day there was a trip to the kopai. And it was beautiful: the strange gorge made by the cutting river. There was a wee bit of some water down in the ravine and of course I headed straight for it and most of the rest followed suit. I splashed around in the bitty but cool water pool that was there and it felt mighty good, and I remember we wandered around and walked around that gorge/ravine and took many a picture. We spent the better part of the morning and a good bit of the afternoon there, I think. But my memory isn’t too clear about the rest. After my lightning fast lunch, I went over to Sir and told him that I was off to meet my friend. He looked at me, nodded and quietly said, "and be back by -----" I nodded like a marine at boot-camp. I had no intentions of disobeying his order. I knew for a fact that he probably would not have allowed too many from his brood of girls to wander off on their own. 

10. I met Manjira. We talked and talked about who-knows-what. She was a good natured and clever girl and self-contained with an amusing and sharp sense of humour and the ability to observe and reflect and comment on life's oddities and strangeness including but not limited to people, did a hilarious job of imitating people and could be quite acidic (too bad if one got on her wrong side or was the butt of her sharp jokes), read a fair bit of English literature and a whole lot of Bengali literature. She was the girl who got me to read one of Sharadindu's books back in our school-days, which had one of my favourite stories - Maru o Sangha. We hadn't been fast buddies in school but had grown fond of one another and felt fairly comfortable in each other's company, and she was more of a neighbourhood friend. She had blossomed very prettily and there was a misty charm about her and a natural evergreen loveliness of the inimitable sort that no amount of cosmetics and hair-dos can imitate and the sort which age does not rob.

It was a good meeting, and a non-riotous one. We walked around in the afternoon sun through some open empty brown fields. There was very little shade I remember in some of the places we wandered around while some of the places had some thin tree clusters. At some point we came face-to-face with a pond. We took some pictures, and wandered around some more. I had a watch back then, and I'd been looking at it at almost 15 minute intervals, and finally it really was time to go. That was when Manjira came up with an excellent idea. We went over to her boyfriend's dorm and she asked him to come along as well. I rode Manjira’s bicycle while she rode with her boyfriend and it took a couple of minutes to zoom back to the guest-house (which had taken interminably long the other way on foot). We walked back to the dorm-room and the door was locked. I rapped smartly and there were yells from the other side, "go away." "It's me. Open up." Somebody finally unbolted the door taking her own sweet time about it and most unwillingly, and what did I see? The girls were all dozing like little sleeping beauties. All of them otherwise the couple who were awake were lazing around and not even my friends wanted to see my face. "look, this is Manjira." But nobody seemed interested in looking at Manjira right then, and the ones who were awake gave her a vacuous smile. "Well aren't we going anywhere for the evening?" Someone probably shot me a black glare and said that it wasn't evening. I shrugged and then said, well then maybe I would just go back with Manjira and come back later then. There were no dissenting voices. In fact they all thought it would be great if I just scrammed right then so that they could shut the door from the heat and my effervescence. Both were too much to take. I said, "let Sir know. I came back exactly at the hour and I'll come back later. I'm off now."

11. We were off and then we lost track of time. Of course I probably should never have left upon my return. I don't know exactly what we did really. Manjira’s quiet and shy boyfriend obviously went back to doing what he had been doing before being disturbed. Manjira and I probably wandered around and talked some more. God-only-knows but time flew and before I knew it, it was getting dark. The cycle plan was out because her boyfriend had other things to do than to be making up and down trips for his girl-friend's friend who didn't know whether she wanted to stay or go, and I buckled down and decided to take a rickshaw. By this time it was just plain dark and just as the rickshaw driver started ambling along the road and I was getting very nervous thinking of what Sir was going to say, Manjira hollered and I saw. The whole college bunch was walking down the side of the road! Oh, the shame of it. I thought at that point that they had come out as a search party for the missing college student. I leapt off the rickshaw after paying the driver for a bolting passenger and ran over to my bunch. Manjira joined me for some minutes all over again. Sir saw me and nodded and I nodded back but he made it clear that he wasn't going to entertain any conversations at that point. I went over to my bunch of seven and they said that Sir was not happy. I asked them whether they had told him that I had come back at the appointed time but everybody was vague. How come nobody told him. I didn't know what to think or say. Finally, I think someone said that they were just pulling my leg and that things were all right. I didn’t know what to think but we wandered around the local market for handicrafts and jewelry and the girls bought this and that, and Manjira insisted on buying me a pair of ear-rings. I don't know how the matter of my coming late was resolved or how Sir and I got around to talking...I know I apologised and our Stats professor (who adored me for no reason that I could ever fathom: it certainly wasn’t for my stats skills – I didn’t have any) got a word in saying that it was true that I had returned at the right time even though I had not stayed. After awhile of roaming around in the market and on the roads, the college-bunch was heading back to the guest-house and Manjira and I bid each other a hasty and quick good-bye - not even a proper one or anything. Something like a 'see you' as though we were meeting every other day.

12. The following day we went to Tagore's abode. All I remember from there is the silence and one room with, as far as I remember, pale green walls and a bed. And I wanted to sit there and just keep sitting there in the corner. I got to know that that was a room that Tagore stayed in but I don’t remember any facts. That's all I remember from there and even that is fuzzy….and it surprises me to think that I really remember nothing else. We visited a river (a stream?) too at some point but that memory is hazy as well apart from the bit where I know I ran down and into it and some of my friends joined me and Sir kept telling us not to go too far out.

13. On our return to the guest house, we got to know that our train had been cancelled because there had been a railway mishap. I was really excited at the prospect of staying for another whole extra day but that was when something that I didn’t expect at all happened. More than a couple of the girls started crying softly. Some were mourning and moaning as if that were the end of the world. I remember at least one of them sat like a drooping wilted flower with her head leaning against her friend’s shoulder and with such a pained expression on her face that one might have assumed that she were suffering from intense emotional or physical pain or both. They wanted to go home to their parents right then. Sir did put forth the plan that we could simply stay for another day and take the same train out the next day and that all of us could notify our parents and families through phone-calls but that idea was dead on arrival. I was the only girl - the only one who said that I would gladly stay. Most of the girls wanted to take a bus half the way and then jump onto a lorry and then take the ferry and walk the rest if need be but they wanted to go back home to their mums and dads and families because they had already been away for a whole weekend. A couple of the girls didn't say anything one way or the other. They were okay either-way, not supporting but neither dissenting staying for another night. Sir really didn't have a choice. As he told me quietly on the side, ‘democracy has to prevail’ but I did fume a fair bit and yelled too at the whining girls which didn't make me too popular. They simply muttered darkly about something or the other.

14. How we got back is something that I don't very clearly remember but at one point we were walking across train lines at a train station (which was probably a junction of some sort) after taking a bus half the way (and I'd been sitting on the engine of the bus: the driver had very kindly let me sit there seeing I was the only one standing). We were sauntering along the train tracks and suddenly there was the abnormally loud hoot of a train. A couple of us looked around and looked back and I saw the lightning fast image of our sedate, always unruffled Sir dropping his bag and leaping across the tracks in one swift motion to drag back one of the girls who was at that point bang in the middle of a train track. Time stood still. I remember looking behind me and there was a lazy train chugging down the other side far, far away from any of us. Some of the other girls had also seen this fantastic image of Sir leaping and I, at any rate, couldn't help but let out an involuntary chuckle but I don't remember any longer who picked up Sir's bag and whether any words were exchanged. 

15. And so we were back in the city at night. A friend's dad had come over to pick her up and very kindly gave me a lift. I know it was very late by then. Quite what the time was I don't remember.

16. That was the trip. One of the few trips that I've made and one where I happened to avoid making a disastrous mess of everything or almost everything.