The Sound Of Departing Train

The Sound of Departing Train

Hello Cheerleaders

(Cheerleaders? What are you even saying? It have to be solid!)

Hello Comrades and my sworn brotherhoods and sisterhoods

(Man, you really have no idea how to do it.)

Hello (Shit! He never let me do it my way)

How are you all? I’m fine by the way.

The end of the year, as you have realized by now, is here. And you know what, it doesn’t matter much. Hell, why a change in numbers going to matter. It’s like change in our age.

(What? Are you crazy? Age matters, bhai)

OK my bad, I take it back, age matters. But why should a change in year should matter? Let’s try it the other way. Why do you think God matters? Is it because he exists in real? Who knows. Or is it that we need someone who gave us hope? The correct answer is belief. It matters because we think it matters. Belief is a powerful thing, without it we will be screwed thoroughly. This is because of belief that we are living in such a stable world -- believe in Constitution, in parliament, in currency, in thinking a landmass as a country named India, in believing something like God’s existence, and our fate that one day we will get married (????), and have a permanent job. That’s the way it goes : BELIEF. There’s a sheer power in belief, damnit. And if we want to believe that the mere change in numbers in calendar matters, then it matters. It matters if those 70 thousands or something number of Gods with merit transcending even humans matters, then this change in date matters as well. And those who want to bullshit about why to celebrate when this isn’t even our calendar, ours is Saka and Vikrama and bullshit and more bullshit, vomit and poison; you listen firsthand, we - or at least I - are men of Belief.

[Okay, that’s enough, they get it. Just come to the point.]

My pint is, the end of the year is here. And when things are about to end, dwindle in moments, I feel like I am sitting on a typical iron bench of a typical small countryside railway platform. There’s a train standing in front of me Yellowish Red from outside, blue from inside. I have been traveling in it since long and now I have to get off it, leave it behind, or it is going to leave me behind. The train gives a long cautionary horn which means those who wanted to come with me come NOW. I clutched the strap of my luggage ready to run, I don’t know why? The clattering of rails, the whizzing of wheels over tracks, the train is going to go away. NOW is your last chance. Tuk-Tuk. NOW. I stand up, bags over my shoulders, legs syncing with the speed of train, I was running : the ending scene of DDLJ, only exception is there is no Simran in the train and I am no Shahrukh Khan. The train is picking the speed, so am I. One stride, two stride and then a jump straight into the train. I made it, and I don’t know why. I should have get off from that and should have boarded the next train, but there I am. I gave a long look at the platform, at the seat where I was sitting, and this is when I have a shock. I am - in flesh and blood - is still sitting on the bench waiting for the next train. I split up in two halves. One half is in this train (the train of last year’s memory) which I should have left behind, and another half is still sitting on the railway platform in wait of next train. He have no memory of me. He is just staring at the cross of last bogey of train, listening the “Song of Departing Train”. Tak, tak, takkk. This same sound is going to come to him at one of those sleepless night, when while lying awake in the bed thinking about the dawn, but longing for the going night, wishing, if only he can hold this night, if only the dawn isn’t waiting for him.

Even now he is having Deja vu which he thinks as some kind of premonition. He is unaware of the tragedy going to happen next year at some another station.

One half in two and two in three is what happening with me, or this is what I felt like. I wonder, how many halves I have in the trains (past), and what they are doing? Are they waiting for me? Or whether they are happy being apart from me? I want to know, but I don’t know how. If only I have some kind of time machine, or kind of superpower.

[oh god, it is a mistake after all to let you do this. Man, you are never going to start this way. Keep aside I am going to take over you from here]

( Behind the scene : SEA came of the stage and Mentor Yogi take hold the stage, now into the play again.)

Hey ladies and gentleman, today is the day when I’m going to reel out those memories - a specific part of course - in front of you. The title and theme is “Annual Bookish Statement” (yeah, inspired from Annual Financial Statement of Article 112 of Indian Constitution).

Ladies and Gentleman, let’s start with an explanation of what this freshly crafted term, hot like the water you forget after putting electric rod into it, actually means. It means that I’m going to tell you those big and fancy numbers of how many books I read this year, with their fancy titles and the weird names of authors who wrote them. And then, I am going to bullshit a lot about everything. And then I will tell you how “Nothing” is your life is without the experience of reading a book. And then I am going to bullshit and bullshit more and more, because today’s word of the day is Bullshit.

So let’s start with very first award.

[No, stop. What about a prelude first]

But before I start I am going to tell you what type of book I am going to talk about and you dare not skip this part, damnit.

[Relax my boy]

(boy?)

[Well, partner. Whatever!]

Have you ever read something after reading which you feel like keep hugging yourself endlessly, or keep crying your heart out, or like you just discovered something unimaginable - question like what if we have perfect memory? (Well, we will stuck in the past if that ever happen assuming past as reality); or have you ever feel like shouting at your lungs to let someone know that you just read this particular book (Listen, I had already read ‘One Hundred years Of Solitude’).

If you haven’t felt anything like such yet, this means you haven’t read a book yet. So, damnit go and read one. Hey, first read the blog, damnit.

This year I read (beep) books. So, before you freak out because of numbers and began to DM me emoji’s, gifs, clichéd appreciation (dude this is cool [emoji of fire] [one more emoji of fire], kind of stuff) while thinking at the same time that whether I am crazy? Before you do any such thing, I want to tell you something first.

This is how one of my friend put it, “Dude, the age of love letter is long gone, now for every emotion we have emoji. I mean, today people watch YouTube reels, and vomit all day over Twitter and Instagram; no one have time for books”. And damn he is right. Right to the very word and core. Nobody seem to care about a fucking book expect if it isn’t on any competitive exam, or some religious text or maybe written by Chetan Bhagat (because he is an IITian and super intelligent) or perhaps by some so called self help guru or spiritual messiah who say he knows all the tricks and ways from darkness to light.

That’s why me reading a fiction is like clearly fucking my time for nothing which is a clear sign of being crazy.

(Enormous sigh) But ladies and gentleman, I am no crazy. I am as normal as you are, but just in a different way (there are different kinds of normal you know)

[let’s drink some water]

INTERVAL

Ladies and gentleman without further delay let’s get started with the BANG of the list and that is, ladies and gentleman, The Book Of The Year.

1. Book of the Year - The God Of Small Things By Arundhanti Roy

And this award goes to the 1996 Pultizer Prize Winner “The God Of Small Things” written by Indian author Arundhanti Roy.

If I would have to give an example of Indian literature, it would be undoubtedly The God Of Small Things with its Indian richness lingering on top of every sentence that taste raw and indigenous it deserves all the credits. God, this is a super tragic story. And I can’t help liking it less. The uniqueness of the pain in this book is the way it lurks silently in the shadows, but stabs deep and strong.

The lush green and raw writing and an impeccable tale set in Ayemenen (a town in Kerala) centered mainly around the lives of twins - Rahel and Estha - but broadly covering multiple themes and chronicles a generation long tale of Ipe Family. You may like it or dislike it for its credulity, but the depth of the book is reason enough for me to place it at the top of all the books I read this year.

2. Saddest Book - Norwegian Wood By Haruki Murakami.

Have you ever felt like the world around you had shed its color; or have you found yourself aching in an unknown mysterious pain of another world. I did, and that for two weeks straight one week while reading this book and another after I finished it. However, with an advantage of hindsight I do realize now that at times it was completely illogical and absurd and anti-feministic (Every time any female character appear in the story author describes her in breasts, thighs, and ass).

3. Most Satisfactory Read - The Shadow of The Wind By Carlos Ruiz Zafon

A Spanish setting, a Paris Tragedy, Timeless love story, forgotten books, secrets lurking in shadows, and Fermin all of them in one book. Past, Present and Future collide and to bind them all is the beautiful and fluid writing of Carlos Ruiz Zafon. This book probably has one of the best ending I had ever read and that make it the most satisfactory read.

4. Hypnotizing - One Hundred Years of Solitude By Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“Many Years Later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” This isn’t just the opening of a book but a history. I swear I ain’t making this up.

This book is written by Nobel winning author Garcia (and this book is Nobel winning work), The narrative of this book is crazy, and it took chapters to figure out in vague terms what is really happening, while with sentences averaging about 1,438, spanning over whole paragraph this is quite intimidating to read it. While reading I realized this author might not be sane while he was writing this, and at the end of the book I realized maybe I ain’t sane myself. I mean, there are ghosts and people who live for over hundred years, people eat dirt, a famine of insomnia, crazy weather - it rains for three years straight, and then for twenty years there was none - blood that trickles all over the town, a young man whom everyone in the house had forgot for years after putting him behind a locked door. Yeah, sanity is the first thing you should be putting aside before reading this book. Beginners please don’t start with it, because even I have to read two of Garcia’s work so as to properly read and understand his magnum opus.

5. Weirdest - Kafka On The Shore By Haruki Murakami

I can’t forget those sleepless nights contemplating about and reading wild theories of what really happened in this book. Even now sometimes with the shiver of first mug of cold water while bathing, I found me contemplating over this book. It’s dreamy and it’s really hard to distinguish between what is real and what isn’t. This book follows its own rules, and has its own reasoning which is to say no rules and no reasoning. Like “One Hundred Years Of Solitude” it is a work of magical realism, but with a large elements of surrealism as a cherry on top. Murakami with his rich painted writing that evoke complex emotion and concepts he is simply an ADDICTION. But this book has all the bad elements as Norwegian Wood.

Other notable Books

6. Dystopian - The Convenience Store Woman By Sayaka Murata