The Ways We Are: Deeptesh

Deeptesh instantly dazzled me with his poetry blog. Reading them made me think he was much older than I, but as it turns out, he isn’t even 20 yet! Deeptesh has the unique perspective of being an English poet in Kolkata, India. Born and raised there, his command of the English language and literature is simply brilliant! He deserves all of the accolades and future accolades that he receives. Written in story form, here is Deeptesh’s romantic take on his identity:

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Two Worlds in a Mirror

There was an extra-ordinary lull in Oxford Street as I walked forward with measured steps. The neon-lit shop windows and the traffic flickered past in a trance almost as if it were a dream sequence. Lila stood in the doorway softly reclining against the advertisement boards in the corner. Her short hair rustled against her blue dress and her face shaded from the gaslight was a perfect interplay of light and shadows. Our eyes met across the street and at once the peaceful composition of her facade changed into a smile. Her eyes were shinning as she held my hand….her touch was magic. She could see me shivering in the cold….”It always snows here in December” she said. Her sentence hung loosely in the silence like a quiet reflection. It had been a long time and through the derelict tunnel of memories the dusty door of which has been suddenly opened by her fragmented words, I found myself travelling back to those sultry evenings in Kolkata.

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The monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein had demanded a female for the gratification of his sexual desires. Victor, the scientist however aborted the female monster as he was scared of giving sexual freedom to a female in this male dominated society. The mad honking of cars outside forced me to put aside the book….the motorbus had been stuck in a traffic jam at Park Street for almost over half an hour. “Damn it!” I exclaimed, “I’ll be late for classes again!” Some political party which apparently didn’t have anything better to do early in the morning was in a procession demonstrating against hiked up prices of goods. The peddlers ferried their wares up to the windows of stagnant vehicles and were making easy money. A huge Bollywood poster of actress Kareena Kapoor was on the hoardings ~there was a big hole in the place of her left eye. I remembered seeing such a poster right next to my school gate. I would scowl at the picture everyday when I walked in…..that beautiful archway with a statue of the Christ above…all that seemed a long time now.

In the summer of 2008 when I had just entered high school after my board exams, I was a shy, hesitant teenager and was known by very few of my juniors even after twelve years of school life. In my academic circle, I wasn’t doing too well in the science stream. The forces that govern this Newtonian universe or the titrate value of NaCl were not my cup of tea. Ever since I had an open heart surgery when I was two and a half years old, my parents had loved me more than a normal child. My performance was also enviable as I was often among the prize winners for general proficiency. But all that had changed as I found myself plummeting to the bottom in high school….I was somewhere near the bottom in my form and considering my decision of having not gone for the Arts Stream a serious mistake. Of course I was still very much the topper when it came to English and Lila was still somewhat ‘more than just a friend’ to me.

It was back in the seventh standard~ when I was in middle school~ as rumor spread that I love Lila. The situation, needless to describe, became too embarrassing for words as the entire class started talking about it. What made things worse was that the so-called rumor wasn’t a rumor after all ~ it was the truth. It was the ultimate truth in my life from which I kept running away as I knew Lila would never love me and we’re so much better off being at least ‘friends’. Even Lila asked me the truth a few times but I blankly denied it.

But we were still “friends” in high school even though I secretly wept everyday when she would not talk to me. Those were the days….I would wait for everyone to leave the class to go to the lab for experiments and wait to be one on one with Lila to speak a little~ after the scandal we seldom talked in public as we were scared of further ramifications~ and she would walk out with her friends leaving me alone. I would cry my heart out in class and then run to the wash-basin to throw up. “Life sucks and I’m going fucking crazy. It’s total shit”, I thought. Ours wasn’t a normal friendship. We would avoid each other for days and then talk a lot again. We would often exchange words ‘friends’ didn’t talk about. And recently my love poems had led her to nag me about the ‘girl’ I wrote about. “Who is the girl? Tell me”..this soon became her obsession.

One sultry afternoon when I was busy with my lab experiment, I received word that our school principal had sent for me. Terrified and not knowing what to expect, I walked into his office through the doors I had always dreaded as a child. In middle school, I often fantasized about that door and what lay beyond~ as if it were an entrance to some other hallucinatory world. It was the house of the jury that gave orders against high school miscreants. Walking in, I was relieved to find the bulky man in his cosy armchair beaming at me. On his table lay ‘The Teachers’ day lyrics’ I had written and he was all praise about it. The next day he took my notebook home and read all my recent poems. He was elated to read them but also added “You have some secret pain in your heart…psychic striptease for therapeutic purpose may be?” I only knew too well what that “secret pain” was but nevertheless I was happy to have entered the principal’s room and gotten his praise…it was to me like transcending the ultimate physical boundary within my narrow insular world of existence. The lyrics was composed by our school band and after the performance on Teachers’ Day, our principal congratulated me declaring me as a ‘poet’ in front of the entire school.

For the last couple of years of my school life, the spotlight never shifted for me as the school poet. That was a personal re-definition of myself and I was still beginning to tackle the escalating fame. For the next three inter-school fests that year I won prizes for creative writings competing against other schools in Kolkata and my script on a satirized version of modern eastern mythology won the Best Script Award in The Vibes organized by The Statesman (Indian paper). And my personal life was taking care of itself in its strange mysterious way. When Lila’s nagging got unbearable one day, I wrote down her name in a piece of paper saying “This is whom I love”. Strangely she seemed happy to read it but called me a ‘coward’ for having lied to her. A month later, I asked her at last, “Lila, do u consider me to be anything more than a friend?” It was anything but a proposal but her reply was simple. “I love you”. I froze in tears as she pleaded with me, “Oh Deeptesh, why didn’t you propose before? I always loved you since I first saw you in the fifth standard. Do you know how much I cried when u denied me? A girl will never tell…I waited for you to tell me all these years”. That was like a flash in a dream…those ephemeral moments of eternity we all hold onto as long as we live even when despair had sucked the heart dry.

In the last year of my school life I started my own poetry blog deepteshpoetry which has been a success and got a few of my poems published outside. Lila’s love was a huge turning point in my life and had re-shaped my identity. It was sad to leave school after fourteen years of school life and the expectations were high when we sat for our board exams. But my result was quite poor in science~ I had already decided to pursue a career in English literature~ but it was difficult to get admitted anywhere as all the colleges were demanding a colossal overall percentage. I knew Jadavpur University in Kolkata had the best English department in Asia but then again, I had to crack a difficult admission test to get in for a BA in English . There were 38 seats against 2500 candidates. Imagine my joy when I came 3rd in the test and got in!!

My cellphone beeped to interrupt my train of thoughts. I was dazed to find a text from our school interact club inviting me to be the judge of an extempore event in the inter-school fest. The bus meanwhile was taking the turn at Golpark beside RKM. What stretched in front of us was the long span of Dhakuria bridge. It was like the pathway to my career. Discussions on romantics like Wordsworth…..TS Eliot’s treatment of time in ‘The Wasteland’… guest lectures by Oxford professors… seminars on Renaissance…heated discussions on cold winter mornings……it was the world of words I had delved into. Our university had a great environment and I was not ‘studying’ anymore…I was living life, researching in the world of literature. “What do u wanna be when u grow up?” irks me at times. I’m an escapist….living in this tapestry of words, ideologies, and ‘isms’. I would smile, “ I want to do a Phd from Oxford”.

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Lila hugged me tightly…”It’s been a long time”..I felt her body softly against mine. The neon-lit boards screamed “Happy New Year 2019”. Cloistered in the walls of a kiss, I felt the those tiny snippets coming back to me in reverie~ the scandal in seventh standard, the day when our principal appreciated me, the day I proposed her….my getting into the University…idle evenings at the Victoria or a whispered confession at a coffee house…or are those reveries the real reality? How real is what we see….is there real meaning to be found somewhere out there in the frozen moment of a guitar string, a single poetic imagery, the orgasmic moment of sexual union or snow frozen on clock hands…..I didn’t know if the kiss was real or my snippets in this looking-glass world……but I knew this was my personal identity, this was my life, this was ME. Lila let go and softly said “No…not here my luv. Let’s go.” And hand in hand, (like in Milton’s “Paradise Lost”), we walked down Oxford Street.

(The girl’s name has been changed. The last part was futuristic but in reality she is now doing a BSc in Physics and I’m doing a BA in English. Thanks to Floreta for allowing me to guest blog for The Solitary Panda. I’ve always had a tremendous respect for her blog and writings and we remain great friends.)

Deeptesh Sen
BA English,
Under-graduate-I
Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India
deepteshpoetry.blogspot.com

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This post is part of a series on personal development, career and identity. It’s not about who you want to be when you grow up, but being who you ARE. The key is to find out your true calling and passions and then figuring out how to live it. We all have stories to share, and I want to hear yours. If you’d like to guest blog for the Panda, please submit to floreta@solitarypanda.com.