There is no field beyond

It is here that I can love you with an aching heart

Reach out for you with bleeding palm

Walk to you even as I limp and pain

Touch your heart and hear it call out my name

It is here that my pride will melt in the warmth of your lips

You will touch and watch me wither and bloom again

You will hurt and I will gnash, and grumble and fall 

You will push me away and will still hold on  

At times I have wanted to choke myself with thoughts of you

To shout my lungs out and explain the miseries I have been through

And it is here, I've thought you would never understand

Yet, I will not let you go

There is no field beyond, If  here you have chosen to let my hand be

When my pleading you have chosen to let grovel in the dust

When my meaning is just another passerby

I have wanted to walk this path, and barefoot and you chose not to carry me.

--- ROSEMARY MARANDI

Of Boat rides and Kochuris

BANDEL

That river was most of the times about boat rides on Christmas afternoons, noisy from picnic enthusiasts playing loud music on the banks, and sometimes host to keen guests from abroad trying to find a difference between Thames and Hooghly. 


And sometimes about floating earthen lamps visible from that railway bridge. They were prayer lamps, I had heard. And i would make thousand wishes everytime that I saw them.


Wishes of a good marks in university exams, a good career, making it big in life, of finding and keeping love, of less pain and more money.


Every Bandelite, living away, at some point in life might have wished that river extended to where they stay. But realised that small sleepy town was just a Port.


Seven years, out of town and everytime I have gone back, I have found the town the same. Barring a few additions like a 'More' store, some fancy 'TMC-special' street lights near Imam Bara, and an extended railing (to prevent suicides) on Bandel Church Shrine. A few residential apartments coming up too. 


And yes, that phuchka wala near Bandel More and Khirod Kaku from Church grounds were not to be spotted this time around... The Sweet shop, near Church, where we used to get awesome Kochuri, that has closed down. Playgrounds are getting smaller and cyber cafes multiplying. Prem Nagar Math is now a bus terminal.


However, Halogen lights near Sign Board More, and all para entrances burn with the same intensity as it used to a decade back (you cant expect it to burn any dimmer, right?). Chawk Bajaar er chop er dokaan, still frying mangsher chop and chicken pokora in one-day old oil. Auxilium and Don Bosco continue to have bitter sweet fights and everlasting love stories. Boudi r dokaan (near DBB) still is the meeting point and her business thriving by the day.


Okay, if all that sound too critical. Pasher baarir kakima still has the time to sob at your deteriorating health and Nabarun Math  still hosts football matches. And a one-hour boat-ride can be bargained for Rs 150.    


I still love going back because.....

    
It is in Bandel that I can walk from home to school once more, cry at the chapel and pray hard at the Church shrine. There, hearing someone call out my daak naam, is not embarassing. Because phuchka kaku still customises phuchka for me with salad and achaar. Churmur is still home-delivery item and aloo kabli a feasty menu. May be because I have found the reason to go back. :)




Okay, now sentimentals aside... It is good get-away. One-hour train journey from Howrah station, or a two-hour drive, and you come to a place less noisy, more sleepy, three-four historic monuments, like Imam Bara,  Hanseshwari Mandir, and Bandel Church. A weekend is enough for visitors. For foreign and big-city returns, a week or fortnight of adda and lazing around. 


Okay ebaar baaje bokchhi. Enjoy Summers!!!


Signing off

 Rosemary