PARIJAT-29

He strikes his stick on the bitumen road as he moves in well past mid-night. The strikes were hard enough to echo that sound far and across for the intended and for the unintended too. You know that sound. It is familiar. It comes when you are analyzing that nightmare in that rapid eye movement state or when your newborn reminds you of its new habit of feeling hungry in odd time or when those friendly mosquitoes who share the same address as yours make friendly visit to you. Night, with all its hot and humidity, rain and thunder and fog and cold, has never become unfriendly for him to prevent him striking that stick on the road, hard and high, thud-thud, thud-thud, two bits sound like two bits reality, ‘the day and the night’, ‘the light and the dark’, ‘the ecstasy and the agony’ and ‘the birth and the death’. The stray dog in the street too gets up and starts barking, out of precaution or habit though it knows him well, still it gives him that questioning look with its body stretched to make it looks shorter, as if to avoid the swing of that stick, the tail between its back legs, comes on his way from the front to bark at him. Soon it jumps to the side of road still barking as he moves forward with its stick hitting the road. THUD-THUD, THUD-THUD, THUD-THUD, THUD-THUD.

The isolated stray dog now has grown in strength; its friends from in other streets have joined with it in barking. Now, they all move in a procession behind him, keeping of course a distance, bodies still stretched ,tails buried between back legs, but mouths shouting in habit. The distance between him and the stray dogs slowly increases as he moves forward. The stray dogs, now their tails up, are barking occasionally. They look to each other, the strong-one goes to the beautiful-one, smells her mouth. The beautiful-one shows her teeth and gnaws in anger which lies between real and artificial, the real for the strong-one being shameless and artificial for she likes that touch. Now they all bark aimlessly looking at strong-one and beautiful-one in disapproval and jealousy, the males in disapproval and the females in jealousy. Slowly they disperse as the thud-thud sound grows smaller and smaller till it becomes inaudible and lost like moon of moonless night. The stray dogs now move to their respective streets, to their respective homes, damp ground where the waste water of kitchen leaks in the summer or the low-level street light of the winter or that extended chajja of the window of that old house giving protection from the rains. They move tail up; wagging in pleasure and body upright for they have ward up the known intruder and his thud-thud sound and they ,now, occasionally bark still remembering and disapproving the shameless act the beautiful-one and the strong-one. Social feeling for the so-called unsocial work? Societal feeling? Why-not-me feeling? Why-it-is-he feeling or Why-it-is-she feeling? Little difference! No difference!! Now it is time for beautiful-one to move. The strong-one follows him. Bye-bye to the old home. Bye-bye to the old love. Bye-bye to the old life. Welcome to new home. Welcome to new love. Welcome to new life. Change is so quick! Change is so strange!! Change is so unpredictable!!! The gap is so close. It is the time lag between two strikes of his sick on the hard bituminous road. Old home-New home. Thud-Thud. Old love-New love. Thud-Thud. Old life-New life. Thud-Thud. Is it the law of the nature? Is it the call of the nature? Is it the law of the creator? Is it the wish of the creator? But it all happens as if it is all natural. As if the world has been created and designed to behave and act in that way. It must and should behave in that way. Is it so?

He has now entered into a new street still striking the sick on the road. The street is calm except for the sound of those air-conditioners hanging out of the windows. An after thought in most of the buildings. It looks like an ugly black-head in a beautiful face. But it gives comfort inside the house. The sleeping squirrels and sleeping birds do not get up in that late night when condensed water falls from those protrusions from the windows. There are of course no stray dogs here to bark at those dropping drops spoiling the silent mood of the night. The bulky man inside the room feels restless. His tranquilizer has not worked today. The business thoughts, the wise man thoughts are too overpowering. Sales target. Cost of publicity. Hiring that advertisement company. Hiring that advertising girl. Beautiful girl. He looked to his wife snoring near by. Wrinkled face. Dropping chins with dropping beauty. Fat. Ooph.Ugly. Old cat. Old cat-New cat. Ugly-Beautiful. Thud-Thud. He should have stood in front of the mirror while remembering the new cat. Instead his disturbed sleep with disturbed thoughts dragged his attention to the ceiling of the room. Tint blue ceiling like tint blue sky. Radiant circular cool light, like the face of a full moon. The beautiful face. The face of that advertising girl. His old lady stopped snoring as she turned the side. Her bulky right leg on his waist. He pushed her leg in disgust. She got up from the sleep. She shouted and demanded,”why can not you switch off that light. You will not sleep and you will not allow other to sleep”. Argument. Counter argument. Again argument. Continuous and simultaneous arguments. Nobody understands anybody. Nobody hears anybody. He does not hear himself. She does not hear herself. But both of them are sure they are speaking their thoughts, old thoughts, buried and bitter thoughts though they can not hear that for the sound has become noise, dispersed, disjointed and disoriented. Mac, the Alsatian in the next room raised its voice in anger. Bhou, bhou and bhou. Stop, stop and stop. It barked at the couple shouting at each other in that late night. The squirrel got up. The bird got up. They all thanked Almighty for depriving them of so called higher intelligence and so called thinking and logical power. They do not need those for they want to sleep in the night, to sleep peacefully without the help of any sedative and to sleep without any argument. Mac had heard that Thud-Thud sound. It had ignored that. It was intelligent enough to ignore that. It knew that flat faced, tiny eyed with beautiful smile man from Kalimpong. It had seen him every month first Sunday standing in verandah and collecting his monthly fee of ten rupees for keeping him awake through out the night and safe-guarding the properties of those sleeping folks, with that THUD-THUD sound. Mac had neither barked at him then nor when he makes that THUD-THUD sound. Ten rupees small enough to buy one kilogram of coarse rice and inadequate enough to purchase the required amount of milk that Mac consumes in a day.

The couple stopped for a moment when Mac started barking loudly. They dropped and stopped the arguments. They ordered Mac to stop barking. Mac stopped too. The squirrel slept of again. The bird in the nest too. In the silence of night the sincerity of flat-faced Kalimpong’s man became apparent.

THUD-THUD, THUD-THUD.THUD-THUD.THUD-THUD.THUD-THUD.THUD-THUD.THUD-THUD.THUD-THUD.THUD-THUD.THUD-THUD. THUD-THUD. ------------------------.

The couple started reasoning why Mac was barking in the late night. It is that Kalimpong’s man who is responsible for Mac barking. Mac is intelligent and alert. It got up in that Thud-Thud sound. They decided as they slept. They will inform the society regarding that sound. They do not require that Kalimpong’s man who disturbs Mac’s sleep.

Hey, John do you know what happened to that Kalimpong’s man? Sure, Parijat must have seen him carrying out his Thud-Thud sound in some other street amongst the barking dogs. Tiny Street. Tiny want. Tiny human with a big heart. Humanity is awake. It has not slept.