Special Edition: Santosh Bakaya

Santosh Bakaya

And Memory Persists

What should I write? An elegy on the passing of an era?
An ode to the ephemerality of time? About those precious moments in the book of childhood, and one’s boisterous presence on those sepia- tinted pages? Did you say, they were trivialities? Inanities? Senseless vacuity?
No way can those nocturnal exploits, escapades, pranks, juvenile debates, and picnics in shaded corners be termed as trifles.   

But, where was the shade now?
With a flick of my fingers, I escaped into the idyllic past. Ah, there were the shades of the evening. The long shadows of dusk were creeping in a relentless advance towards our house in the University Campus, Jaipur. I saw Nipper chasing a spunky squirrel. Then, I was thoroughly amused, when I saw him bounding towards me, charging right, pouncing left, and licking me all over.
.The Guava tree was still there in the backyard of the neighbouring house, but the branches were lacklustre. We had spent many joyous moments among the branches, almost snatching guavas from the beaks of the rapacious parakeets.

Years melt, days melt, time moves on. Memories remain, erupting either in the form of evocative poetry, splashes of colour or descriptive prose.

Today again, I looked out of my window to witness the interplay of  the shades of the evening ; streaks of orange splashed all across the blue sky just some time back, appeared to be slowly disappearing, to be replaced by ominous clouds. Soon, it started raining. The versatility of the invisible painter intrigued me. Was it the surrealism of Dali, or the impressionism of Monet and Claude that had mesmerised me so?
Did one of the clouds look like a melting watch?
 Time stood still. The present melted away; the past took over. I was enchanted by the ‘persistence of memory’ always nestling in a cranny; a sound, a smell, and a word, enough to trigger it.

The rain again transported me to a long forgotten past spent laughing ,enjoying, jeering, playing, joking away our childhood years in a warm cocoon of love, affection, banter, and compassion, where Dad ruled like a benevolent, crown-less king, and mom his better half !

With my mind’s eye, I could see a bunch of naughty kids pirouetting and traipsing in the rain, shrieking and singing in untrammelled glee.  Ah, the thrilling, ephemerality of cherished moments! One of the shrieks yanked me from my reverie, and I was back to the present.

I saw a tiny, ill- clad boy rummaging in a heap of garbage.
With a happy gleam in his eyes, he picked up something. Then shooting a look in my direction, dashed away with the booty clutched firmly in a tiny hand, making me realise that all of us are hunting for some elusive treasure in order to lend some sparkle to our lives, irradiating our mundane existence.

All those treasures of the past swam into view. The neem tree planted by dad had grown along with us from a droopy, diffident sapling into a huge, shady canopy. It appeared to be throwing a rollicking rustle my way, happy at my sudden appearance. A magpie robin sedately perched on one of its branches, went into a litany of chirps. I stood behind the tree to eavesdrop on my idyllic past. Did it really exist?

Who was that figure in white, smiling in my direction, a hand raised in benediction? My granny! I still have a picture from those wonderful days standing out in all its dental glory!   I, a mere toddler sitting in granny’s lap, smiling for the camera, with my two front teeth shining, trying to compete with granny’s three teeth!  Dental dearth evoking mental mirth!

I also saw sprint champions running all around the garden. Who were they?
 Just moments frozen in time. Etched in memory. Moments long gone, but still existing in subterranean depths.

 Just a few days back, I heard the rumblings of a thunderstorm, and I am sure I saw Mom, in the whirlwind, standing forlornly under a vigorously shaking tree.
“Is it you Mom?” I asked.
‘Om Om Om,’ echoed the storm.
 “Hadn’t I requested you to record my voice, so that you could listen to it when I was not around? “I heard her.
 I recalled the scene. Mom sitting on the bed, near her small temple, in Jammu, making that request. But before she could complete the sentence, I changed the topic, talking about myriad incongruities- apple pies and pastries, biscuits and buns, and the ever-smiling bread man who would get them on his bike in a box. Ah, those giddy times of childhood spent in Jaipur!
Mom forgot the Kashmiri bhajan that she wanted me to record, and started talking in hushed, reverential tones of the blissful times when Papa, with his loving baritone, infectious laughter, and his unique witticisms was still around.
And alas, having succeeded in distracting her, her voice couldn’t be recorded!   

The wanton wind chimed, mixing its breezy notes with the merry cry of the ice cream vendor.
"Okay, let me sing this bhajan, and you record it. Please do." I again heard the persistent voice. 
She sang, and I listened, eyes glistening. But this was only after she was no more.
Why didn’t I record her voice when she was still around?  
The storm was growing turbulent.
She still stood under the tree.  I ran towards her trying to catch her fluttering saree, without any success. 
But her voice rang in my ears.  “Never live only for yourself. Never be envious of others’ success. When you help someone, never let your right hand know what your left hand is doing.”
“Yes Mom”, I spluttered, furtively wiping a tear with my right hand, which went unnoticed by my left.  

 Dizzying chunks of nostalgia merged, submerging me. Were those moments,
speckled with slivers of a wistful infinitude, gone forever?
What were they? Hallucinations? Flights of imagination? 
Or ephemeral slices trying to gain a strong foothold on my dizzyingly palpitating heart?

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Bio: Internationally acclaimed for her poetic biography of Bapu, Ballad of Bapu, and biography of Martin Luther King Jr. [Vitasta] Santosh Bakaya, PhD, poet, essayist, novelist, biographer, Tedx speaker, has written twenty-nine well- received books across different genres.
Morning Meanderings is her popular column in learning and creativity.com.
Sunset in a Cup her latest book of poetry.  
Her Tedx talk, The Myth of Writer’s Block is popular in creative writing circles. 

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Setu, August 2024