A year ago on this date, I was busy adjusting my writing table next to the window in my room in the new house I had shifted to. A room with many views is how I have come to see it – views of soul-soothing trees, potted plants, birds, skies, and rains, but also views on gender, sexuality, public health, social justice, and all the politics associated with these issues. Views that I come across or express as an editor in writings that get published in this webzine.
On several occasions, I have been ecstatic at having found a corner in this hyper city called Kolkata, a corner that offers me relatively cleaner air, a proximity to the elements, and a degree of quietude so that I can hear myself think. Given that my room is in one corner of the house (the south-western one) on the third and top floor of the building with no concrete structures jostling next to it, you cannot fault me for spreading my arms wide open in the room, or on the terrace above it, facing the setting sun, and imagining myself in the iconic Titanic pose where Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet stand at the bow of the ship, arms outstretched, and mimic flying. Even more so in recent months, because I have met someone who readily stretches his arms with me, sometimes like Leonardo, other times like Kate, but most of the times like himself.
These flights of imagination notwithstanding, I know very well that my new home in a quiet residential area is just five minutes away from the mechanic violence of the main road, and that I continue to inhabit a world spinning with an unchanging tango between privileges and oppressions, biases and resistances, binaries and questionings, and more such contradictions. So, what has changed profoundly in the year gone by in a new home?
For many months, before I met my fellow Titanic flier, it was about mostly learning to live absolutely on my own. Of course, I had friends and family members around, and I had fun hosting out-station visitors, but the sensation of locking an empty home when leaving for work, or entering a deafeningly silent home with no one there to welcome you back has been something else. A fresh lesson in realizing that being alone is sometimes the best way to figure out how not to be lonely. It would be a serious omission though if I were not to mention the companionship provided by my potted plants and the trees in the neighbourhood.
There have been scores of other moments and experiences through the year that I may have imbibed and which may flow onto these pages from time to time. Witnessing and participating in the celebrations of the 25th anniversary of ‘Friendship Walk ‘99’, also known as the first edition of the ‘Kolkata Rainbow Pride Walk’ held on July 2, 1999, was one such experience. An almost simultaneous experience was about being there last August at the night rallies organized to protest the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at R. G. Kar Medical College & Hospital and to question the government’s ineptitude in ensuring justice for the doctor and her parents.
However, I think what has left a stronger imprint is the battle between the humble house crow and the mighty kalbaisakhi wind as viewed from my window more than a month ago. I was fortuitous enough to witness the scene because of my interest in bird watching. It was a particularly windy afternoon, with sparse but heavy raindrops announcing the prospects of a thunderstorm. I could see some birds seeking a quick refuge in the trees around, but our protagonist had different ideas. Leaving its perch on a rooftop not far from my building, the bird decided to fly against a gust of wind. For quite a few moments (several seconds if not an entire minute or two), the bird was unable to make headway towards its desired destination and yet continued to stay afloat, refusing to return to its perch. Even before the wind relented, the bird sensed a drop in the wind force at a slightly lower height, quickly dipped a couple of feet, and flew off with elan.
Nothing remarkable perhaps in the world of birds, but I wish the world of activisms that I am part of were to draw some lessons from the crow. Isn’t there too much predictability in how we strategize, advocate, and protest? The powers that be and the status quoists often seem to gauge our strengths and weaknesses better than us. Do we not do a disservice to our cause in doing more of the same, in the same manner, and expecting different or better results? Do we not lack credibility in everyone’s eyes (and in our own) when we do not practice what we preach (and continue to use clichés such as these)?
About the main photo: A twilight view from the author’s room captured by the author himself
Absolutely!! We have to constantly re think and go back with alternate strategies to catch that dip in the wind.