I dreamed of Uttorshor last night. It was a most wonderful dream. The bazaar was in full swing. The shuddering, angry buzz of housewives haggling with shopkeepers over rice, potatoes, spices. The pathways covered with mud. The drizzling rain outside. It was chaos inside, chaos.
Where did you go?
Coolie boys ran after me and offered to help, enthusiastically trying to snatch my bags away from me. I shooed them away. The older ones ran away, undaunted, not caring. But there was a little one that cared. He walked away, looking hurt. A young boy, already tired of life. I did not know how to comfort him. You would have known what to do, I think.
Where did you go?
An old man sits on the pavement, selling warm fresh pithas. In real life I would have felt sorry for him in my middle-class, prejudiced kind of way. Haggardly man, bending over his pithas, rarely smiling, with abrupt manners that did not befit a man of his age. In the dream I noticed more. The deep creases in his face that concealed memories rich, delicious, and pungent. The little spark in his eye as he put extra care into the bhapa pitha he made for you – your favorite, of course.
Where did you go?
The dream carried on, in the relentless way that dreams do. I can picture every little detail of that bazaar now. The dark and claustrophobic shop that sells rice and muri and daal and all sorts of other things, and where the shopkeeper knew so well how bored you would get that a cheap mango ice-cream would always be ready whenever we arrived. The bookshop into which I always had to drag you against your protests, a dreary little place that only sold stationary and a few incredibly dull books that your teachers had assigned for your class. The man around the corner who repaired shoes – ten minutes, no questions asked, whatever the state of the shoe. There was always a group of people chatting around there, and you would listen, strangely fascinated. I always wondered why: was it because it was a world beyond yours and mine, one that you could not take part in and which therefore smelled irresistibly of freedom?
And then, as we reach the top floor of the rickety old building, the noise fades away. It is my favorite part of the bazaar, a small oasis. There is a ledge over which you can gaze out into the turbulent city. From here the confusion of the bazaar is a blur, a distant memory. Here you can have a moment of serenity, here you can abstract away from the world. The sky is a pale stuttering grey, still trembling from the aftereffects of the rain. Scores and scores of old, discolored buildings stretch out in every direction. With an effort I even make out the river weaving its way through the crowded city. The sun breaks out and suddenly the river is shimmering. It is the most beautiful thing I have seen all day.
It is then that I notice that your tiny little hand is no longer grasping mine...
I dream of Uttorshor every night. In these dreams I am always searching. I begin outside, at the pavement where the old man sits – he will no longer talk to me, I do not know why. I call after the coolie boys. With their energetic little feet, they can surely help me find what I am looking for. But they stand there hesitant, their impetuousness gone. I scream at them to help, and the youngest follows me, but there is despair in his eyes, and I find I cannot gaze into them.
I must keep searching. I suddenly remember a pair of shoes that you had wanted repaired – a green pair that no longer squeaks the way they used to when your father first got them for you. I reach the man around the corner, and he fixes them, ten minutes, but today he will not accept any money from me. The group around him is talking. “Yes…most tragic…the police have given up by now…can you imagine, a mother losing her only child…they say she has gone quite unhinged…”
I climb onto the top floor. It’s empty there, dead. I look out, and there is the river, dark and foreboding. You had never liked the river, you said to me once, the way it snaked in and out through the city, drawing and tempting you in before getting lost around the bend.
Where did you go, my little girl, oh where did you go?
Where did you go?
Coolie boys ran after me and offered to help, enthusiastically trying to snatch my bags away from me. I shooed them away. The older ones ran away, undaunted, not caring. But there was a little one that cared. He walked away, looking hurt. A young boy, already tired of life. I did not know how to comfort him. You would have known what to do, I think.
Where did you go?
An old man sits on the pavement, selling warm fresh pithas. In real life I would have felt sorry for him in my middle-class, prejudiced kind of way. Haggardly man, bending over his pithas, rarely smiling, with abrupt manners that did not befit a man of his age. In the dream I noticed more. The deep creases in his face that concealed memories rich, delicious, and pungent. The little spark in his eye as he put extra care into the bhapa pitha he made for you – your favorite, of course.
Where did you go?
The dream carried on, in the relentless way that dreams do. I can picture every little detail of that bazaar now. The dark and claustrophobic shop that sells rice and muri and daal and all sorts of other things, and where the shopkeeper knew so well how bored you would get that a cheap mango ice-cream would always be ready whenever we arrived. The bookshop into which I always had to drag you against your protests, a dreary little place that only sold stationary and a few incredibly dull books that your teachers had assigned for your class. The man around the corner who repaired shoes – ten minutes, no questions asked, whatever the state of the shoe. There was always a group of people chatting around there, and you would listen, strangely fascinated. I always wondered why: was it because it was a world beyond yours and mine, one that you could not take part in and which therefore smelled irresistibly of freedom?
And then, as we reach the top floor of the rickety old building, the noise fades away. It is my favorite part of the bazaar, a small oasis. There is a ledge over which you can gaze out into the turbulent city. From here the confusion of the bazaar is a blur, a distant memory. Here you can have a moment of serenity, here you can abstract away from the world. The sky is a pale stuttering grey, still trembling from the aftereffects of the rain. Scores and scores of old, discolored buildings stretch out in every direction. With an effort I even make out the river weaving its way through the crowded city. The sun breaks out and suddenly the river is shimmering. It is the most beautiful thing I have seen all day.
It is then that I notice that your tiny little hand is no longer grasping mine...
I dream of Uttorshor every night. In these dreams I am always searching. I begin outside, at the pavement where the old man sits – he will no longer talk to me, I do not know why. I call after the coolie boys. With their energetic little feet, they can surely help me find what I am looking for. But they stand there hesitant, their impetuousness gone. I scream at them to help, and the youngest follows me, but there is despair in his eyes, and I find I cannot gaze into them.
I must keep searching. I suddenly remember a pair of shoes that you had wanted repaired – a green pair that no longer squeaks the way they used to when your father first got them for you. I reach the man around the corner, and he fixes them, ten minutes, but today he will not accept any money from me. The group around him is talking. “Yes…most tragic…the police have given up by now…can you imagine, a mother losing her only child…they say she has gone quite unhinged…”
I climb onto the top floor. It’s empty there, dead. I look out, and there is the river, dark and foreboding. You had never liked the river, you said to me once, the way it snaked in and out through the city, drawing and tempting you in before getting lost around the bend.
Where did you go, my little girl, oh where did you go?
