Think you decide your day? Ask Didi or all those who may not be named

 

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ying on the Fowler bed, I now have all the time in the world to reflect on life. For instance, yesterday felt like the day before, and the day before was like the previous day. It’s as if all the days are just repetitions of their previous ones. Don’t snigger. I know I am not saying anything new. If I were it would not have read so true. Neither would you have been tempted to snigger.

But just think about it. The earliest day of my life that I can remember was different from the current one. Of course, it was. I was a kid then, and now I’m a senior citizen and a parent to an adult person. But then, it was the same as it is now. I wake up in the morning, eat, bathe, go to school, then college, university, and eventually to the office. And now, I’m in the Fowler bed. The differences aren’t marked by actual differences; they’re marked by the almighty or whoever decided that tomorrow I would be older than today, and then the others who said after so many days from my birth, I should be at a place like school, college, and so on.

Pau Arenós, a Spanish journalist, wrote in his book “Las Pequeñas Alegrías” (the little joys) that he used to get pulled up by his mother for always living in the future! He writes, “No sé vivir el momento presente, sino el siguiente.” Roughly translated, it means, “I don’t know how to live in the present moment, as I live in the next (future).” Of course, it’s not a literal translation, but that’s what it means.

We all know it, don’t we? I didn’t need to quote him to prove that we think alike! But I did so because Anirban (Chattopadhyay) da gave it to me for reading while he came to visit.

Now that all the references are in place and the authenticity of the content has been verified, let me say what I set out to. As I was saying, the only thing that could truly mark a difference would be non-compliance! For example, if you drop out of a set course, like not going to college.

If you are looking for its veracity check out Trump’s way of doing stuff. I mean everything was cool. The economy was coming round and all of a sudden this man takes a contrarian turn, decides to raise tariff to bring the US boys home! That changed the day for all of us. May be differently to different person. But you see we didn’t have a hand in changing our daily experience. He did it for us! If it were not for him we would still be quite foggy about say what was different this day in January in such and such year.

Or, take for example, losing of jobs of thousands of teachers in one stroke! We didn’t do it. Yet our days, if they are different, have been so because someone else decided to screw our lives!

Therein lies the point. You see, you don’t change your day. You go to sleep, you wake up, you eat and go to the loo, you earn, you lose your job … hold on a second! No you don’t lose a job, they take it away from you thereby breaking the monotony of your life.

Are you foxed by reading it? Don’t. I wouldn’t have known this if on the 20th of February someone else decided to rule that I should fall and break my back! If it’s yet a haze ask the Didi or the Dada, he would explain everything to you. But don’t ever try to break the monotony yourself for yourself. It doesn’t work. Life has a different understanding of “different”.  Barriers look small but they decide whether you will cross it.

Slipping, Falling, and Finding Love in the Pain

 

As I slipped, I knew exactly what lay ahead for the next three months. But what I didn’t anticipate were the endless questions coming at me from all directions. Honestly, if I had known I was going to slip, I wouldn’t have been foolish enough not to prevent it! But would anyone listen?

— How did you fall? 

— I slipped on a wet staircase. (As you can see, I was trying to keep the questions to a minimum and allow myself more time to enjoy my pain.) 

— No! We mean, are you sure you slipped and didn’t fall because you blacked out? 

— (Damn! You’re wasting my time, guys.) I am absolutely certain this wasn’t caused by a blackout. I wasn’t drunk either. Now, please do something because I know I have a case of broken vertebrae—not just one, but multiple. 

— How do you know that? — (I was about to cry out in frustration.) Because this is the third time! And I know how it feels much better than you do! 

— How many stairs? 

— It didn’t give me time to count! Next time, I’ll try to fall in slow motion so I can get you an exact number!

As I lay in the emergency room, telling myself that this too would pass, the pain refused to let me forget.

For those uninitiated, I recently slipped on a rain-soaked staircase and fractured four vertebrae. It’s a record—apparently, breaking vertebrae more than once is a rarity. I’m writing this blog post because, despite my friends and family claiming my accident should be newsworthy, not a single news channel covered my story. Yet they show a cat getting run over as breaking news! Blame my luck.

I hadn’t actually planned to write about this. I had a different topic in mind. But life rarely follows our plans—just like my unexpected fall.

But, boy oh boy! Did I enjoy the attention? Maybe it’s age that makes you more aware of things beyond yourself. Like love.

Love is a strange thing. It’s felt the most when you’re confined or unwell. It works both ways—when you see someone you love in pain, your heart aches, and you instinctively reach out, wanting to share their suffering. And for the one lying helpless in bed, a simple touch becomes a renewal of life, a reassurance of existence. Love is a connection that, at times, mimics an umbilical cord. It transcends everything—it’s maternal, romantic, and the deepest bond we experience. And it is entirely gender-neutral. Love is the most precious gift we are blessed with.

That was a serious paragraph. But how true it is. Lying in the emergency room, all I longed for was a caring, loving touch. Isn’t it strange how your body’s very cells transmit your emotions? Even in the hands of professional caregivers, I could sense the empathy in some of them. It was a wonderful feeling—to be cared for, even in the absence of familiar, loving touches.

But when I first sat down to write, I had a completely different story in mind. Perhaps I wanted to talk about my interaction with DALL·E and how it reacted before generating the image you now see as the cover. But then, should I? I hear DALL·E is omnipresent on the internet. And who knows? Maybe it wouldn’t take kindly to my criticism and retaliate—just like the hospital stretcher-puller who was annoyed because he had a couple of dead bodies to transport after me. He didn’t care how he handled me. No, he didn’t have the touch of death. But he certainly lacked the touch of care!

The Changing Face of the Kolkata Book Fair: Nostalgia, Commerce, and the Lost Space for Ideas

 

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oes this happen only to me, or do others feel the same way? Standing in a rare quiet corner at the Kolkata International Book Fair, I found myself wondering—what if I hadn’t come? Has this visit become a ritual dictated by nostalgia rather than a true love for books? Has this annual journey turned into a pilgrimage, more out of habit than passion?

I still remember my first book fair. I was in school then, and back in those days, the fair was held at the Maidan. That vast, green expanse—often called the lungs of the city—would momentarily surrender itself to all kinds of artistic and intellectual pursuits beyond the commercial world. One such space was Mukto Mela.

If I remember correctly, Mukto Mela took place in the Maidan, opposite the Tata Centre. It was a vibrant space where one could witness Shakti Chattopadhyay, already a cult poet by the late sixties, composing poetry on the spot. Prakash Karmakar would be absorbed in his easel, while others engaged in singing, reciting, or dancing. Around this time, Sandipan Chattopadhyay introduced his Mini Books—each a mini volume dedicated to a writer or poet. Still in school, we would eagerly await each new edition. Even after half a century, I vividly recall the one featuring Shakti Chattopadhyay’s poems with illustrations by Prakash Karmakar. Soumitra Chattopadhyay could often be seen puffing on a cigarette, laughing at a joke—probably one cracked by Sunil Gangopadhyay.

The Book Fair itself was commercial but in a different way. Among the sprawling stalls of established publishers drawing large crowds, there was Boi Bazar, where one could find secondhand and slightly damaged books at massive discounts. That was our hunting ground. I still remember the thrill of discovering a 19th-century edition of Diwan-i-Makhfi—a collection of poetry by Zeb-un-Nissa, the celebrated poet-daughter of Aurangzeb. She spent most of her life imprisoned and died around 1702. The very fact that a 16-year-old could find and feel excited about a book like Zeb-un-Nissa in the fair speaks volumes about the kind of intellectual space it once was.

Why was I thinking about all this? The human mind is strange—it keeps making connections, even when you don’t intend to. The spot where I stood was on the outer ring of the fair. Just across the road was a barricaded area, strictly off-limits—no one was allowed to sit there and draw, sing, or recite. Some protested, but the authorities justified it by saying that the fair was for the buying and selling of books, nothing more.

A group of media students approached me for an interview. When I mentioned that I had been attending the fair since its inception, they were amazed. They asked me how book fairs of the past compared to those of today. I shared my thoughts but I failed to see any spark of excitement—or even regret—in their eyes.

It is unsettling to think that people are not reading as much anymore. But then I grew up in a para in North Kolkata where our home was the only one with books beyond the Panjika. Yet it was the period when excitement over books still ruled. Some claim that more books are now sold in Tier-2 cities than in Kolkata. Maybe. What is reassuring is that people are still reading. But the problem lies elsewhere. Those in the business of selling books seem to be suffocating the very space that nurtures the ideas behind them. Have we, as a society, developed an aversion to intellectual exchange? Is this fear of free thought stifling the emergence of new-age Shakti Chattopadhyays?

Or have we simply become worshippers of mediocrity? And don’t think twice about choking the space for creative thinking?

P.S. The books in the pix are a fraction of what I bought. They are just to illustrate.