A few more words on
Ranjan
and the world around him
Ranjan and soothsaying
Ranjan once went for
holidays to Darjeeling with a college mate. One morning there, at the mall, his
friend, while staring at the blinding glitter of the Kanchanjangha, suddenly
asked him : “ Can you foretell what all will happen twentyfive years hence?”
Like a wise man Ranjan
answered: “Many of our dreams shall be shattered – you’ll see!”
Ranjan and love
Ranjan had a strange
experience about love. As things usually happen, one fine morning at some
careless moment Ranjan, then an adolescent, suddenly discovered that he had
fallen in love with a certain “Nandini”. It was what is usually called ‘first
love’!
Thereafter, and quite
in the normal course of things, Ranjan began spending day after day, hour after
hour in daydreams about Nandini, and Nandini’s company. Many dreams were born,
and many bundles of letters, never to be posted.
After quite a few days
having passed in this manner, Ranjan suddenly came to know that the girl whom
he took for Nandini for all these days, the girl about whom he had woven lots
of dream-yarn for so many days, was not Nandini at all; her name was Nilanjana.
And the one whose name was Nandini was another girl.
And surprisingly
enough, after this discovery, Nilanjana started to gradually fade from the
world of Ranjan’s mind.
The problem with Ranjan
“You know what the
problem with you is, Ranjan?” – one of his friends asked him one day.
“Let’s hear it out!”
“It is : you’re much
too religious!”
“Why? Why?”
“I mean, suppose, if
any godman-like chap comes along and says that the height of religious act is
standing naked in the middle of the Esplanade, then you’ll do exactly that!”
“Tushhh! All rubbish!”
– Ranjan retorted.
Ranjan and ghosts
While doing their
post-graduate studies in the University of Calcutta, Ranjan and some of his
friends often used to have tea-sessions with some of their teachers. In such
“adda”-s the teacher-student distance would lessen a bit. Tea, coffee,
cigarettes, and at times a little heavier drinks too, would do the rounds. The
discussions would center around diverse topics – both of the light and the
heavy kinds.
One day the topic of
the discussion was “Ghosts”. Hearing Ranjan make a light remark about ghosts,
one young teacher who just returned from the USA asked him:
“Don’t you believe in
ghosts?”
Ranjan smiled.
“Have you ever walked
in and around the Dalhousie square or in front of the Metro cinema at noon?”
“Oh yes Sir, several
times!” – answered Ranjan, a bit astonished.
“Can you make an oath
to the efect that there and at those hours you took off the shoes of everybody
to make sure that their ankles aren’t turned inside out?”
Ranjan smiled, without
saying anything.
Quite a few years after
this, Ranjan had to visit the same professor’s place. The professor entertained
Ranjan amply with tea and snacks. For quite a while they discussed about the
supremacy of the US. The professorr seemed hell-bent to make Ranjan see that
today the USA was the last resort for the whole world. Al long last, after
quite a bit of time, and after the deep purple hue of the falling evening
covered the sky all around, Ranjan asked for permission to leave.
And, right at that very
moment, in that creepily darkening verandah, and all on a sudden, Ranjan
chanced to notice for the first time the young teacher’s bare legs. And he
fearfully noticed that the ankles of both the legs were inside out!
And while approaching
the exit in a deeply panicky and unprepared state, Ranjan also caught a glimpse
of the caring eyes of the teacher. As he looked at the fond gaze of those eyes,
it seemed to Ranjan as if those eyes were beckoning to tell him: “What you’ve
seen, you’ve seen. Never ever disclose anything about it to anybody!”
***** *****
*****
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